Question about stainless steel water tank and pickling process

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PandaBear

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Long story short, a weirdo family member insists on replacing all of the plastic 5 gallon water dispenser with something that has NO plastic due to some microplastic concern. This family member will pay for the conversion and let's say we will not go under-sink water filter (due to space and leak concern, water waste concern, etc), we will be looking at either stainless steel milk can or beer brewer equipment like Sansone Fusti tank.

I really like the Sansone Fusti tank as it doesn't cost too much, has good tight seal, a spigot, and come from a huge fan base that are picky about quality (beer, olive oil, etc). There the standard one (Europa) that's 304 stainless and then there's the 304 stainless that has been through pickling and polish (Europa-AQ). I'm looking for the 5.2 gallon / 20L model since this is probably as heavy as I want to haul around yet still a good price. Anything larger would be very difficult to move around.

What I want to know is, if I am just going to store RO water from the water store instead of any acidic stuff, or alcohol. Is pickling and polishing really important since 304 stainless is already very corrosion resistant?
 
Can you get 316L stainless? That's what we use in the pharmaceutical industry for purified/DI/WFI water tanks.
 
Leo99 said:
Can you get 316L stainless? That's what we use in the pharmaceutical industry for purified/DI/WFI water tanks.
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They don't make 316 tank just the spigot is 316. I don't have a problem with 304 but what I have heard is the welding can cause part of 304 to lose corrosion resistance and pickling / polishing would make them more resistance to corrosion.
 
If you are going to the trouble of attempting safer water storage, it seems prudent to go with one that has NSF certification. That's what I would do. I do maple syrup and everything we use is "food safe" (so they claim).

Ironic that at my workplace just today the young college student employees were discussing plastics in the human body. I stupidly thought of plastics as somewhat inert. Yikes! The chemicals in them that can leach into our bodies is frightening.
 
In order to make the tank safe, it should go through a passivation process to clean it properly. This is likely what's being described as pickling. Regarding polish, that may well be an electropolish. This is a prepping process before the passivation. Ask for certification and see what they say.

Edit: found a site saying the Sansone tanks are NSF certified. You are good to go. I personally, wouldn't accept anything less.
 
Yeah their regular and their AQ are both NSF certified, just the AQ has the extra pickling and polish step. I assume that even if they didn't have that on the regular line they are still NSF certified, and should be safe, just won't be as corrosion resistant and as durable.
 
Did more research and it seems like the AQ model with extra pickling to improve corrosion against aqua / water and the one without is for storing oil, wine, and beer that would corrode less. Interesting that water is actually more corrosive and need the extra process to protect.

I've also done some search and find out that 316 is not needed in my case since I am planning to store RO water with no chlorine. 304 is sufficient.

So I guess that's my answer.
 
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