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Sodium Percarb will remain my standard cleaner - removes beerstone fine when used hot, cleans everything completely to my satisfaction - and doesn't have sodium met in it........

Why do you not like sodium met?
 
2.1 Main risks and target organs

Sodium metasilicate is strongly irritating to the skin,
eyes and respiratory tract. Acute exposures involving the
inhalation of dusts may result in irritation of the
respiratory tract and corrosive damage may result from
contact with mucous membranes. Prolonged exposures can lead
to inflammatory changes and ulcerative problems in the mouth.
Possible bronchial and gastrointestinal problems can occur,
depending upon concentration and duration of exposure.
ROFL! The same - and worse! - can be said for any number of common household and brewery substances. Grain dust, caustic soda, bleach, large volumes of boiling liquids....

Percarbonate does work just fine without the water glass additive, though. Might take a little longer, but it's still a good detergent.
 
Sodium Percarb will remain my standard cleaner - removes beerstone fine when used hot,


You must have a different type of SP down in SA, as I've never been able to shift beerstone with it up here, however concentrated & hot the water.....
Also, once you see the extra crud that PBW removes from your equipment like plate chillers for instance, there's little comparison.

......& yes, totally affiliated as I distribute it in Aus B)

Cheers
Ross/CraftBrewer
 
You must have a different type of SP down in SA, as I've never been able to shift beerstone with it up here, however concentrated & hot the water.....
Also, once you see the extra crud that PBW removes from your equipment like plate chillers for instance, there's little comparison.

......& yes, totally affiliated as I distribute it in Aus B)

Cheers
Ross/CraftBrewer

Ross
Is it safe for aluminum eg kettles?
 
Yes Batz....

A qualified Yes on aluminium - on the latest Brew Strong podcast which goes into great detail on PBW and Starsan, Jon Herskovits recommended no longer than 24 hours contact time for aluminium. Being a soft metal he wasn't confident it would hold up to long term exposure like stainless would. 24 hours is still way long enough to get ali clean however - just don't fill it and forget about it.
 
Just for the record - I didn't say that there was anything wrong with PBW, It does do a good job of cleaning......I'm just not a fan of the sodium met in it, that's all :) or more to the point, my skin isn't a fan of it - I get a little bit of dermatitis and anything with sodium met in it makes my hands itch like a so & so ....
 
Dom, are you confusing the sodium metasilicate which is reportedly in PBW with sodium metabisulphate? Different beasts, sodium metabisulphate certainly has some negative effects on the human organism. Not so sure about sodium metasilicate but PBW claims to be very safe to handle.
 
So you think a hot napisan soak for an hour or so should be fine on an aluminium kettle, Goatherder?
 
I expect so Stu - I don't know for sure but I assume the high alkalinity of PBW would be the reason for the caution with ali. I don't think napisan is as alkaline but I'm just guessing this. I assume plenty of brewers have done this before and there doesn't seem to be any widespread complaints of it attacking the aluminium. Sorry for the vagueness...
 
Can your store this stuff once it is made up?

Rook


Emailed 5 Star asking about the time effectiveness of PBW. The filtering concerned using a hopsock when re using from a dirty fermenter/keg and straining through coffee filter paper to have a finer filter. This is John's response & I thank him for his answer.



The "Active" time for PBW is 24 hours. After this time all of the usable Oxygen is gone. There will still be alkalinity and other cleaning agents, but the most effective aspect is used up. You can reuse this solution after this time frame, but it will take longer to work. Once it gets soiled with gross amounts, I would start over with a fresh batch. Using a coffee filter is a bit far for me. By filtering the large crud out of the solution, (reference to the hop sock) you should be able to keep using it. However, this solution will take longer to work, and eventually it will not work. The more organic material the solution sees, the more alkalinity will get used up.

I hope this helps. If I need to go more in depth I can.

Jon Herskovits
Five Star Chemicals
 
BTW, after being a Hydroxide user, I've switched to PBW and I love it best stuff ever, listen to the Jamil/Palmer podcast on cleaning to get the sccoop
 

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