I have a fridge with the typical brushed stainless steel face. The brushing grain is horizontal. It also has a wonderful design defect: the water dispenser in the freezer door dribbles water down the front of the fridge Every. Single. Time.
The previous tenants here did not keep up with that and I have inherited a raised trail of crusty dried water droplets ~3’ long and ~2" wide. Looks like shit. You can readily feel the raised bumpiness of the crusty minerals as you run your finger across it.
The typical SS appliance cleaner does exactly zero to cut this stuff. Any lime / scale removing chemical (e.g. CLR) explicitly warns against using it on SS appliances.
What’s a mother to do to remove this stuff w/o damaging the brushing?
Try heavily wetting a paper towel or cloth with vinegar and tape it up against the crust to dissolve it (unless the internet says it’ll damage the surface).
I hate appliance stainless steel, or at least the one we have on our refrigerator. It stains, shows grub, and is difficult to clean & keep clean. I dont know what type of stainless it is, but it’s too soft.
I’m about ready to donate the one we have and get another one back in “white goods” white or whatever color they call it.
ETA: @needscoffee 2 posts up:
I’ve had exactly zero success using vinegar to ever remove accumulated water scale from glass shower doors. It’s no more effective than plain water is. Which is to say not at all.
Of course while the glass is wet with vinegar or water, the accumulated water spots are invisible. But as soon as it’s dry, you can see they’re still there in full force.
That experience suggests to me that while vinegar is a classic old school “green” “safe” cleaner, it is in fact useless for water spots.
Did you read it? Most of it is about manufacturing SS and the cleaning steps and noxious chemical baths involved in making the stuff. Interesting, but about 99% off topic.
It has to soak a very long time. At least a full day. Also, you can get high acidity (75%) industrial vinegar intended for this purpose. Who knows, it may not work any better than what you’ve tried, but it takes a long time to leach out deposits. Like at least a day to leach the calcium out of eggshells.
I understand it was mostly industrial application. It’s about “cleaning and descaling stainless”! Isnt that what you asked? I understand it’s difficult to find aqua regia or nitric acid. Maybe you could apply some methods or variations in it. This isnt FQ.
My experience when dealing with stainless steels and rust or mineral buildup is that you want phosphoric acid. There are several products on the market for that. Just use as instructed.
Well, this mother would suggest trying Bar Keeper’s Friend, my favorite cleaner of desperate last resort for decades. They even make one specifically for SS appliances:
If that one doesn’t work, I’d try their basic Bar Keepers Friend, a genuine workhorse on limescale in my Midwestern hard water/no water softener locale. That one I’d try a test patch first, somewhere it doesn’t show, like pulling the fridge out an inch ot two and trying it on the usually hidden side. Follow the instructions, minding going with the grain and rinsing, not leaving on too many minutes, etc.
Supposedly the SS Cleaner version leaves an invisible coating which hopefully would diminish future water trails and stains. I’ve never used that version but I sure am never without the general one. It comes in both a powder form (like Comet or Ajax) or a spray foam. I find the spray to be more convenient and less messy to stash under my kitchen sink. The website implies they are equally effective. Anecdotally I would agree. I only use the powder form when I also need the abrasiveness. There are probably people who would say I couldn’t possibly need to purchase that form, that I’m abrasive enough all on my own.
I use citric acid to clean dried scale from SS pans.
Get a pack of crystals and dissolve a few spoonfulls in a little
hot water - I use filtered water (so as to remove the stuff that leaves the
scale, which would reduce the efficacy) boiled in a kettle.
CLR specifically has a product that is fine to use on stainless steel. Does it actually work? I have no idea. I am looking forward to your report on this.
Any sort of acid will eat away at scale deposits. Weaker acids like acetic acid, or more dilute ones like vinegar, will just do it slower.
Unfortunately, any sort of acid will also eat away at Fe. So cleaning stainless steel using an acid is a matter of knowing how long to let it go, so that it (mostly) eats away the scale, but (mostly) doesn’t eat away the steel.
I was going to recommend citric acid too. I have a water distiller that I assume has a stainless steel lining (I have no idea what metal the lining is made of though). Cleaning it recommends mixing water and citric acid, then bringing it to a boil. Doing that dissolves all the scale from the magnesium and calcium left over from distilling the water. I believe it works on rust too, but I’ve never had rust in my device.
I used CLR twice on my stainless steel sink before I learned better. The sink is perfectly fine. If the CLR did any damage it is extremely minor.
That said, if I used it every month for years I suspect problems would appear but, if you use it once or twice it doesn’t seem to cause any noticeable problems.
Of course, follow the directions. Don’t listen to me. Mainly do not sue me. This is on you,
Keurig Descaling Solution is a citric acid formula designed to remove accumulated water mineral scale. It is available widely, in your grocery store in the coffee aisle, Amazon, Target, etc.
This Bar Keepers Friend spray cleaner contains citric acid and has a vertical surface spray foam setting. The web site lists stainless steel as an appropriate use. The web site also lists where to purchase it.
This is sorta embarrassing, but I’ll post this for someone’s future reference.
Went to Home Depot, bought the small jug of original liquid CLR. The package sez the stuff works fine on brushed stainless as long as you don’t use an abrasive sponge or cloth. So I also got a small package of shop rags. Says to use it full strength on “tough accumulations”. Like mine.
Got the rag good and wet w full strength CLR, scrubbed gently along the grain of the brushing and within a couple minutes a miracle would occur in the ~2" swath of the rag. So ~20 minutes’ effort later the gunk is 95% gone, everything is rinsed well, and dried off. There’s a vague patina of water spots left, but not nearly as wide, or as obvious, as when I started.
I’m letting everything dry fully, then will take another shot at the remaining patina. I have a personal rule that any drudgerous chore must be a) stopped at the 90% point to allow for extended procrastination to set in, and b) no drudgery can be sustained past about 20 minutes per day total.
These rules may not be efficient, but they sure are effective at producing half-assed results. So I’ve got that goin’ for me.
So I’ve got that goin’ for me. 
