Pilot light depositing tons of soot under kettle

[Terrazza]

I am nearing the completion of a Brutus10 system, and fired it up for the first time last night. I noticed that the pilot light sure puts out a lot of soot. I am using converted kegs.
Also- does anyone have any experience repassivating stainless kegs that have started to show rust? I have hydrofluoric acid and was wondering if that could be used in place of nitric acid.

[bergerandfries]

John Palmer is a metalurgist by trade, and his website www.howtobrew.com has a whole section on passivating SS.

[bub]

Adjust your air intake on that pilot light... you should not get soot.
BUB

[Eagle Creek Brewer]

You also want to make sure that the flame isn't impinging (touching anything), if it does it will soot. Depending on the type you have you may have to adjust the metal housing it has or adjust it if its touching your burner.

Barry

[Terrazza]

Cool. Bub, I just turned down that pilot light and no soot. Since I had som hydroflouric acid solution, I poured a little inside where the rust was, and it dissolved instantly away. I also had some really fine sand paper that I wetted in the acid and lightly went over where the rust was. Rinsed it well with distilled water and dried right away. I'll see if this works or not. I'm not planning on touching those kegs for a good week. Has anyone else ever had issues with rust?

[BDawg]

I'm no metalurgist, but if I recall correctly, you need a nitric acid based solvent to properly passivate SS.

That doesn't mean that the hydroflouric won't work, I'm just trying to regurgitate something I think I remember hearing Rock Candy say. Point is to help you validate what you did is right.

HTH-

[BrewTa2]

Since you have HF I presume you understand it's extremely dangerous, just thought I'd point it out for others. HF is an excellent rust remover used with nitric to clean stainless, nitric is used to passivate.

[Test_Engineer]

Since you have HF I presume you understand it's extremely dangerous, just thought I'd point it out for others. HF is an excellent rust remover used with nitric to clean stainless, nitric is used to passivate.

I was just going to post that. I used HF when I worked in a materials lab. That shit was in the hood 100% of the time. It is very nasty stuff.