Our bee club as an old 9 frame E.H. Taylor extractor that has seen many many years of abuse and repairs.   The body of the extractor is Stainless Steel but the armature that holds the frames is cast aluminum.   Long ago the paint started to peal so the decision was recently made to remove the remaining paint by sandblasting so not to have paint flakes in the honey.    Now we are looking at a beautiful aluminum armature with a nice matt patina finish after a run through a dish washer.    I am about to put the extractor together and was wondering about the safety of leaving the aluminum bare or if we should paint it with a food grade paint to seal it.   I dislike painting and the risk future paint flaking.   The honey won't be sitting in extended contact with the aluminum rather just dripping past it.  So is there any real safety or flavor risk with bare aluminum and acidic honey?     

Thanks
Ryan Williamson


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