Aluminium cleaning?

[Andy BB]

Issue here is cleaning the inside of aluminium bottles (or aluminium Kelly/ghillie kettles etc) where it is impossible to get at the surface directly. With glass you can use various chemicals (and false teeth cleaning tablets!), but I understand that it's not a good ide to use these on aluminium.

Anyone got any solutions? Cheers.

 

[Toddy]

Well it is and it isn't.
For bottles…..If you simply dilute down some domestos and swirl that around in it with warm water and a wee squirt of fairy, then make with the vigorous use of a bottle brush, it'll only take moments. (watch the splashes, mind bleach bleaches!) Rinse out really, really well, swirl again with the bottle brush, rinse again, and then dry the bottle off as best you can with a long twist of kitchen towels. Put it somewhere warm to dry off thoroughly….on top of the radiator kind of thing
The false teeth cleaning stuff fizzes and that and hot water agin aluminium is not a good thing. Neither's bleach really, but it's the same stuff as is in the tap water these days anyway, so I just don't leave it in there and I don't do it very often either. If you use bleach on a stainless steel sink you'll see it come up shiny….I'm told that's because it's dissolving it :yikes:
I want to know how come they pipe it through the water mains though with enough chlorine in it to be smelled ?

Anyway, what I said works on my aluminium and ss water bottle things ….and it hasn't damaged the inside coating on the one that has it either.

The kelly kettle I just rely on boiling water to kill off any buggits, and make sure I rinse it thoroughly when I get home and again, put it somewhere to dry off before I stow it away.

What do the manufacturers recommend ?

M

 

[santaman2000]

First choice is hot soapy water (the bleach is for disinfection) A bottle brush should get to most inside surfaces but unless you've gotten something solid inside to scrub, there's really no need.

Neither bleach not hot water will damage aluminum. If it did, we couldn't boil water in aluminum mess kits. For decades we cleaned our Scout mess kits with boiling water (the hotter the rinse water, the quicker and better it dries. Likewise with SS military mess kits they always set up a two station cleaning line: 1) Hot soapy water to mop it clean, and 2) Hot (boiling or as near boiling as field conditions would allow) water fortified with bleach to rinse. Both style kits lasted for decades until somebody would invariably dent them up.

Hot water never harmed any of the aircraft (aluminum) washed either.

 

[mrcharly]

The chemical NOT to put near aluminium is caustic soda (sodium hydroxide).

Bleach is fine.

 

[Kadushu]

Lemon juice is pretty safe and effective at removing limescale. I only put water in my flasks/bottles/kettle now because tea, coffee, etc can be such a pain to clean out.

 

[Toddy]

Kadushu, I didn't even give limescale a thought
I've never lived anywhere where it was a problem, our water is very soft and more inclined to grow a harmless pink mould.

Good point about the lemon juice

M

 

[santaman2000]

Lemon juice or vinegar either one will work on lime scale. We used to run a diluted vinegar solution through the coffee maker every month or two to remove scale build up in the Southwest. Like Toddy I don't have the problem here though.

 

[chris123]

Dishwasher works a treat.

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

 

[IC_Rafe]

I just wash the bottle i use out with the dishes. Never had any trouble. I only use them for water though. Then again, the thermoses we used to use when i was a kid, got the same treatment. I know it's glass inside those, but just washing them out with a sponge on a "stick" works .

 

[Andy BB]

Thanks, folks. Useful info.

 

[TarHeelBrit]

Another vote here for white vinegar. It will remove any lime scale build up and kills any bugs that might be lurking. I've just used it on my aluminium VDV mess kit as it's been in storage since 78 and the canteen was a bit whiffy. Vinegar, boiling water and good soak followed by a thorough rinse and it's good to go.

Prior to that I used Milton fluid on my Swiss M32 canteen and cup and the cup was severely tarnished by soaking in the Milton. I had to use a solution of white vinegar and water to scrub the cup clean again.

 

[oldtimer]

Lemon juice and baking soda soak followed by bottle brush and hot rinse.
We never mix up our flasks or mugs. Mine usually has contained black coffee and are sparkling clean: hers are heavily stained with tea. I hate to thing what her insides are like!
More seriously, we both use Sigg water bottles. She complains that hers retains an unpleasant taste whereas I never have any problems with mine. I intend to try some of the cleaning suggestions above to see if one remedies the problem. So thanks for the suggestions.