{"id":867,"date":"2020-07-14T19:01:35","date_gmt":"2020-07-14T19:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/?p=867"},"modified":"2020-07-17T13:31:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T13:31:41","slug":"my-first-encounter-with-beer-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/14\/my-first-encounter-with-beer-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"My first encounter with beer stone"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had my first encounter with beer stone recently. My fermenter chiller coils have been collecting a residue that does not come off easily. Normally, to clean them, I run a Scotch brite pads along the coils with some Barkeepers. Then I rinse well and dip in a StarSan solution and let air dry. The coil looks clean while wet. Afterward it dries I notice the residue. At first I thought it may be residual StarSan that dried up but the last time I used the coil, there was a lot more residue.<\/p>\n

This is a close up of my chiller coil I put in my fermenter to keep temps with glycol. I have seen this residue on the coil before but not near this much. The picture of the coil is after cleaning with a Scothbrite pad and Barkeepers.
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Upon swirling the cup, it did not act like yeast, which would make the solution milky. It acted more like miniature grits or something and quickly settled out. So I took a sample an eyedropper and put it on a slide and checked under the microscope. The microscope picture is at 430X.
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Next, I tried soaking the coil in a BarKeepers solution for two hours. That didn’t seem to help at all, so I soaked in a standard StarSan solution for 30 minutes. That seems to help a little the the residue is still stubborn. <\/p>\n

Now the residue on the coil looks a little whiter and when rubbed with my finger would create some powder. The residue flaked off a little easier with a knife blade to get a sample for the microscope.<\/p>\n

Here is a picture under the microscope at 430X:
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After talking with some folks at my local homebrew club, we determined the residue is beer stone, or more scientifically, calcium oxalate (C2CaO4). So, I ordered some Five Star B.S. Remover<\/a> and will update here with results.<\/p>\n

Follow up: I soaked the coil in the recommended solution of BS Remover for ten minutes per directions. There was still a good bit of residue on the coil. So, I let it soak for another 3-4 hours. That did removed a lot of the beer stone, but there was still a good bit remaining. I went over the coils with a Scotchbrite pad and got almost all of it off. There is still a very little bit on the coil. I was hoping to be able to soak it and have the beer stone get eaten off, but some mild elbow grease was required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had my first encounter with beer stone recently. My fermenter chiller coils have been collecting a residue that does not come off easily. Normally, to clean them, I run a Scotch brite pads along the coils with some Barkeepers. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,3,25],"tags":[136,135,134],"class_list":["post-867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-equipment","category-sanitation","tag-beer-stone","tag-calcium-oxalate","tag-five-star-bs-remover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":872,"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867\/revisions\/872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hangar92brewery.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}