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-----PICKLING FOOD PROCESS WATER PIPE
I am using 304 STAINLESS pipe for food process water. Is there a standard practice or requirement for circulating a pickling solution in erected pipe or is it even necessary? Thanks
George Bennett- Charlottetown, PEI, CANADA
1999
George, Re your question, wouldn't it be best to contact ANY local (food) pickling Company to answer your questions? Stainless is A.0k for process water, as you well know, but if your 'pickling' solution contains salt, even 3l6 stainless will eventually have problems. If your temperatures are low and ambient, consider PVC. There are much better plastics, plastics with much higher heat resistance but in terms of cost, installation, superb acid/alkali resistance, PVC is the King. Yours truly,

Freeman Newton [deceased]
(It is our sad duty to advise that Freeman passed away
April 21, 2012. R.I.P. old friend).
1999
There are FDA specs for the electropolishing and other aspects of sanitary piping used in food manufacture. But apparently they are sometimes ignored. I was watching TV, and the 'local interest' news segment was doing a tour of a cookie factory. And they zoom in to this shot of wet cookie dough flowing out of a pipe and into a big mixing kettle. And the pipe it's flowing out of is black iron, with the open end threaded no less! Oh, yuck! And on TV! :-)

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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