I think I may have done a bad thing - a small piece of galvanized pipe in my build

[pcjack]

I am so sick to my stomach right now. 

I just finished a 5 week build and I was cleaning up some of my materials tonight and came across a piece of pipe that may be galvanized.

I only used this pipe in one place, it carries the grease from my baffle plate trough down to the ball valve under the 120g propane tank I

used to build the smoker.  It's only like 4 or 5 inches long.  Do I tear out my RF plate to remove and swap this out?  The pipe is inside my

RF plenum.  The tray was made from angle steel, sits between my two RF plates, with a slight angle to the center between the two plates.

Am I losing my mind by thinking I have to pull it apart and remove the pipe?  If you need a better pic of the other half of the pipe that I have,

let me know.  My buddy gave me the pipe and it was late at night when I installed it.  Never thought about it until now and I feel really, really

stupid right about now.

IMG_3833.JPG

• pcjack
• Sep 20, 2016

 

[pcjack]

....and now I just realized I posted this in charcoal smokers and cannot figure out how to move or delete this thread.  UGH!

 

[JckDanls 07]

if you can get to it with a torch.. burn the galv. off and you'll be good to go... but then also.. It takes over 800` for it to turn into a bad thing... so really.. myself i wouldn't worry about it... I have a buddy who made the whole smoker out of galv. and he's been smoking on it for years...

 

[bmudd14474]

A while back I had the same question and I remember reading somewhere that it will be ok. If you had food cooking on it then you might have an issue or if you were cooking over 400 consistently.

I found this article that is worth a read. http://www.galvanizeit.org/educatio...ed-steels-performance-in-extreme-temperatures

@DaveOmak might have some good info as to yay or nay.

 

[dward51]

Hard to tell from the photo, but it does have a light silver coating (does not appear to be hot dipped so the coating may be pretty thin).  If you can,  shoot a torch flame back up that pipe to get it red hot from the inside of the pipe (I would do it outside in the open air and with the pit door open so any off gassing can escape away from you).  Anything that is going to out gas will do so and it will never get that hot again.  Once it's burned in and has given off the gases, it should be fine.  Better to burn it off than have to break welds and totally redo.

If you don't have acetylene, a mapp torch from HD or Lowe's would probably work.  Just might take a little longer.  If you can get it cherry red, you are fine.

 

[chef jimmyj]

You will be fine! WAAAAYYY too much Sky is Falling rhetoric and paranoia about Galvanized Steel in Smokers. If you ain't cooking directly on it, made entirely of galvanized or running the smoker at 900°F there is ZERO...NADA...NOTHING to worry about...JJ 

 

[pcjack]

Thanks all for the input. I was thinking I really screwed myself. LOL. I have both an acetylene torch and one of those inferno propane starters, will reach up in there and heat it up. The galvanizing coating is not thick like on boat trailers, looks like a light shimmer to the coloration on the pipe. I will heat up part of the remains and test it to see if it will flake. If so, will find a way to reach up in there with a torch and heat it up to red hot. Will test that theory tonight. Again, many thanks for the shared info!

 

[pcjack]

Thanks for the input and the article. I also found this article to be quite interesting as well, it warns that only high acidic foods not come in contact with the galvanized materials.
That being said, I am going to heat that pipe up and force it to flake, hit it with some abrasive and call it a day. You guys ROCK!

http://www.galvanizeit.org/hot-dip-galvanizing/how-long-does-hdg-last/contact-with-food

 

[pcjack]

So this morning before work, I couldn't help but satisfy my curiosity and see if the galvanizing comes off under heat. So I fired up the Acetylene torch and heated up the pipe to a nice orange glow.
Not only did it smoke a lot, it left a white powder residue on the driveway and the galvanizing coating ashed up (not a large amount, but enough to convince me it was good). I believe we have
success! I also researched more on the secondary link I posted, looks like I am going to be in good shape. I was really bummin' last night, because of all the "absolutely no galvanized metals"
hype seen in many posts here. The plan is to work on this installed pipe this evening. Will post more info when done.

 

[pcjack]

I heated the installed pipe today.  (the last post was supposed to state I tested the burn on one end of the unused portion of pipe)  I opened up the smoker door and pulled out my cooking racks so the zinc smoke cannot affect anything, then taped my acetylene torch to a 5' piece of box tube and reached into the smoker and torched the outside of the pipe and the inside of the pipe until it glowed bright orange on both sides,  I could literally hear the pipe sizzling the contents off, weather it was the vegetable oil or water from the steaming process.  When when cooled, I can see that the pipe has lost the galvanizing glaze it had before.  I think we're good to go now.   I want to thank each of you for the input and confidence in fixing this without having to tear out the baffle.  :o)  I am so relieved!