Sanitation Question

[colbycurtis]

Today I was looking around my shed and saw an old aluminum turkey boiler pot. It is big probably will hold 8 gallons and it has a faucet on the side at the bottom which is what caught my eye. So I was thinking if I could clean this thing up I could pasteurize an entire 5 gallon must in it and after it cooled down to a warm level I can just put the primary on the floor next to the stove and use the faucet to drain it into the primary which should also do well to add air to it. So I looked inside and it was dirty it was used to boil peanuts and cook turkeys in it years ago. So I took it into my bathtub and twice with hot water and lots of bleach I scrubbed. My whole arm smells like bleach my hands are shriveled and the pot should be clean but heres where my question comes in.

It is aluminum so the water has turned alot of areas dark like tarnished or something also the pot has millions of scratches inside it so it has to be clean but it is really discolored. Do you think this is OK to use? Will aluminum add some sort of bad taste to it? I have looked for a large stainless steel pot that has a faucet at the bottom but can't find one anywhere.

 

[akueck]

Boiling some vinegar solution will remove the tarnish. The scratches (assuming they're clean) won't matter if you're heating to pasteurize.

On the other hand, heating the honey is unnecessary for a clean fermentation. Honey doesn't have much in the way of spoilage organisms, and heating will drive off delicate aromas in the honey. So, up to you on the heating front.

 

[Jandra]

Personally I wouldn't use anything aluminium for heating must. As the must is slightly acidic you'd have a chance of some of the aluminium desolving in it, causing off flavours and (more importanltly) potential health hazards. I'd use stainless steel or something enameled.

I always make 5 liter batches. What I do, is heating up a liter (about a quart) of water in a stainless steel pot for stock/soup. I take it off the heat and disolve the honey in it. I put in in my sanitized primary fermenter and add another 4 liters of cold tap water (or a bit more). We have good quality tap water. If you're hesitant about yours, use bottled or filtered water. Anyway, ususally that gives me a must that has a suitable temperature for pitching the yeast at once or fairly quickly. Haven't yet had any sanitation problems and I don't need an overly large boiling pot. Works for me.

Happy brewing, Jandra

 

[Leonora]

I agree with Jandra. I wouldn't use it.

Adding oxygen to your must is important, but not that hard. Let the must splash through a sanitized strainer or whip with a whisk.

The only thing I use my old aluminum pans for anymore is natural dyeing! But I don't use it for anything I am going to eat at all.

One thing to think about is if you want to pasturize - you can just pasturize the honey. Then add the warm flowing honey to your 5 gallon carboy with 3 gallons of cold water. And then top it off with more cold aerated water until the carboy is to the 5 gallon mark.

My honey is all crystallized so I have to heat it up a bit. So I add the warmed honey to the cold water in the carboy. Then I stir and pitch the yeast. It works just fine.

All the best,
Leonora

 

[wildaho]

Sigh...

Do a search on this forum and I think you will find that the majority of people here find no need to pasteurize or heat their honey other than to de-crystallize it. You definitely don't need to pasteurize or boil it or skim it.

On the issue of aluminum, go for it! There has not been a SINGLE quantifiable or verifiable link to any specific health concern beyond rumor and innuendo (I read it on the internet! It must be true!). It's been been proven to be totally harmless on Alzheimers (the common complaint) and many other things as well. Here's a link to the Alzheimer's Society de-bunking that myth. You are going to get a bigger dose of aluminum from your underarm deodorant than you will from boiling water for a couple of hours in your aluminum pot.

Granted, aluminum IS more reactive to acidic or basic substances. Fine. Why are you heating your honey in it to begin with?

 

[colbycurtis]

Sigh...

Do a search on this forum and I think you will find that the majority of people here find no need to pasteurize or heat their honey other than to de-crystallize it. You definitely don't need to pasteurize or boil it or skim it.

On the issue of aluminum, go for it! There has not been a SINGLE quantifiable or verifiable link to any specific health concern beyond rumor and innuendo (I read it on the internet! It must be true!). It's been been proven to be totally harmless on Alzheimers (the common complaint) and many other things as well. Here's a link to the Alzheimer's Society de-bunking that myth. You are going to get a bigger dose of aluminum from your underarm deodorant than you will from boiling water for a couple of hours in your aluminum pot.

Granted, aluminum IS more reactive to acidic or basic substances. Fine. Why are you heating your honey in it to begin with?

I'm not (Heating) I put it back in the shed. Thanks for the info. No need for it since I've learned there is no need for pasteurizations.

 

[Medsen Fey]

Hello colbycurtis,

There are some nice stainless steel brew-pots with spigots available, but they are awfully pricey. For my money, if I wanted to boil/pasteurize my must, I would use the aluminum pot I already have and not think twice about it. There really isn't evidence to make one live in fear of aluminum, though I confess I only buy steel/iron/glass cookware. There are some recipes out there with grains or with some vegetables/fruits that do require boiling, and if you try one of them, that aluminum pot should work just fine.

I agree that boiling or pasteurizing the honey is an unnecessary (and possibly harmful) as well as time consuming step.

Medsen