How important is it to clean off all corrosion from hard-to-clean kitchenware like moka coffee pots? Is there a health hazard to the patina of aluminium?
You can check the answer of the people under the question at Quora “how to clean aluminum coffee pot“
Anything made of aluminium will have a protective oxide coating of aluminium oxide on the surface. You will never remove it since it reforms as you abrade it away. This is also why you should let them dry naturally instead of drying with a tea towel, since you are likely to remove some oxide and make the towel appear dirty with “black” marks. (Aluminium oxide is white but when rubbed off, the oxide layer can trap / absorb light and so appear black.)
This does NOT mean that your cookware is dirty – it is simply how aluminium behaves.
Officially there is no known health risk to this oxide deposit and aluminium is deemed safe for cookware. Aluminium (in the form of aluminium sulfate) is regularly added to water in water treatment plants as a flocculating agent – that is to cause unpleasant bits to stick together and precipitate from the water before filtering.
However , there has been some suggestion in the past that aluminium MAY be associated with Altzheimer’s disease since higher than expected levels of aluminium have been fund in the brains of those who died from this disease. To the best of my knowledge, there could be no connection, the disease may attract the aluminium or – perish the thought – the aluminium may play a part in the development of the disease. Perhaps someone can inform us as to where current research stands?
Until the link between Altzheimer’s and aluminium can be proven to be coincidental and aluminium is confirmed not to be causal in the disease, I personally prefer to avoid using aluminium cookware unless it has a non-stick coating. I even avoid deodorants and antacids that contain aluminium. I may be over cautious as some people will suggest, but I prefer to be “safe rather than sorry” – and I prefer non-stick coatings and steel pans anyway.
Corrosion eats away at metal and pits it. It’s the same as what rust does to metal. You have to wash it off and use a corrosion inhibitor to prevent it from happening. Get ahold of a product called CLR for cleaning off corrosion and stopping it from happening. The second part of your question is patina. Patina is a ancient form of aging or discoloration used on copper to give it a different look. It won’t hurt a thing and no it’s not a health hazard at all. Patina is used on aluminum and copper for many things and many uses to color or age the metal and in fact, it’s been used for thousands of years dating back to ancient Romans, I understand, to color metal and make it look ahead some. I don’t know the whole history but you can look it up online to give you the whole history of betina.