Charred Element, Burnt Taste, Sad Face

[Dunkelbrau]

Hot caustic will remove organic material.

 

[Black Devil Dog]

 

[spog]

Add enough water to cover the element by 2-3 inches or 50 -75 mm, heat then add a teaspoon full of citric acid ( found in the supermarket) ,let cool over night.
This will loosen the built up/burnt on crud, then use a stiff bristled toothbrush to clean in,around and under the element.
Drain and if required give it another go.
By heating the element it expands the crud,crap,**** ,and lets the citric acid get in and do its job,stir the mixture in when added.
Rinse thoroughly then dry to prevent any residual left overs.
I use 2 Kmart kettle elements in my rig and this works for me.
Cheers....spog...

 

[Hippy]

Stainless steel kitchen scrubber.

ss scrubber.jpg

And a lot of elbow grease. It took a few months to get my element back to pristine, and it's now copper coloured as I rubbed the nickel coating off it, but still works perfectly.

My Birko element is now also copper coloured but I sped the process up by using a wire brush fitting on my angle grinder.
Ended up with a piece of wire sticking out of the cartlidge in the top of my ear, so bought a wire brush bit for the cordless drill and that was a lot easier.
Next time I'll go with ear muffs instead of plugs and maybe a face shield as well.

 

[spog]

My Birko element is now also copper coloured but I sped the process up by using a wire brush fitting on my angle grinder.
Ended up with a piece of wire sticking out of the cartlidge in the top of my ear, so bought a wire brush bit for the cordless drill and that was a lot easier.
Next time I'll go with ear muffs instead of plugs and maybe a face shield as well.

Umm doing what you have I would say that you have stripped the coating and damaged the element,it will now show you who is boss and **** itself, possibly half way through a brewing session .

 

[Topher]

Great, thanks guys. I've been scrubbing like crazy with a green scourer with not much luck.

I'll try the citric tomorrow, then the caustic if that doesn't work....I'm not sure I'll actually try the angle grinder wire brush flinging ear trauma method above. But I might give it a touch with the dremel if nothing budges.

 

[Hippy]

Umm doing what you have I would say that you have stripped the coating and damaged the element,it will now show you who is boss and **** itself, possibly half way through a brewing session .

Yeh probably, but it's done a couple of brews since .
When it happens I'll let you know,.

 

[Hippy]

Great, thanks guys. I've been scrubbing like crazy with a green scourer with not much luck.

I'll try the citric tomorrow, then the caustic if that doesn't work....I'm not sure I'll actually try the angle grinder wire brush flinging ear trauma method above. But I might give it a touch with the dremel if nothing budges.

The angle grinder component lasted as long as copping a piece of wire in the ear and going to plan B. The cordless drill on a low speed actually works pretty well, but if I had of known about the citric and caustic I'd of probably tried that first

 

[Topher]

Ended up resorting to the dremel with the wire brush, then elbow grease with the scourer.

Brewing tomorrow, will see how it goes.

 

[Kak]

My 2400w element burnt. Spoke to the supplier and he recommended lightly sand blasting it. It Just so happens that I have a small hand held sand blasting gun. Gave it a wiz, and that was twenty five brews ago. I think the golden rule is not to boil more than 60 mins. My burnt due to the fact that I was **** faced whilst doing a brew and wasn't payng attention and boiled for bout two hours.

I have had this beer in fermentor for about 6 months. I check it regularly to see if it changes. The taste and smell have subdued a little bit but not enough for me.

 

[brando]

All this thread has done is confused me.

I'm about to start step mashes using BIAB with my 40L Birko exposed element urn.

I'm planning to do an infusion protein rest @ 52 for 10mins, infusion sacc rest @ 63 for 40 mins, then use the element to heat up to 71 for 30 mins, and again for mashout at 78 for 10 mins.

Am I likely to get a burnt element or not??

 

[pk.sax]

Apparently not. Apparently doing the step up from protein rest is the culprit.

Apparently Bribie is the urn king and you should apparently listen to him.

Apparently.

I don't urn brew - known.

 

[brando]

Calling Bribie. Your thoughts on my post?

 

[brando]

Bump