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I have been using this trick for years. All you need is a small bottle of Trechas or Lucas (chili powder that contain tamarind,red peppers, salt, sugar). I put one table spoon in hot water and let the parts soak for 2 min. I'm sure it's the citrus acid that does the trick, but where I live it is cheaper and easier for me to find this at $1.00 a bottle. No scrubbing, and will clean the darkest nastiest copper you can find.
Check out the results.
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Neat trick, Mike.
I figure just about any acid will work. Citric or any other. Peppers, tomato... all good sources.
I used to use lemon juice (which of course is citric acid) and salt but then Punkin said to use the hot backset from the boiler after a run and, by golly, it worked just fine. It had a low enough pH to clean the copper and its free to use and, for me, plentiful.
But lately I've been lazy since scoring a couple of big bottles of citric acid crystals for cheap.
Just got to ask because of your name, did you go to A&M?
Yes, Class of '01.
Gig em.
I buy in 3kg at a time, CITRIC ACID 2.8Kg FOOD GRADE @ eBay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty6eY9VUIgI
Did i just miss some sorta secret handshake?
I have no idea what A&M is......but Gig em?
Sounds a tad B&D.. :))
Now thats just wrong #-o
As you were Gentlemen.
I second the citric, it's cheap and readily available. You can also source it cheaply in its non-gmo/organic variety if that is important to you.
Woo pig sooie, razorbacks
yes sir Go Hogs!!!!!!!!!!!!
I use ph minus from the hot tub section at the garden centre sodium bisulphate. It is fairly agressive when concentrated.
^^^^ sounds brilliant
googled... looks like doctoring it with a few things is even better, 'salts of flourides' and a surficant.
Applications for Sodium Bisulfate: The Dry Acid @ Jones-Hamilton Co.
You can get food grade phosphoric cheap as well.
I currently use ospho paint etch and prep stuff from the home improvement store, a cup in a gallon.. was going to switch to citric, now slightly confused...
Food grade citric, just call around to the local bulk chemical or ingredients suppliers, I'm sure they'd be happy to sell you a 50 pound bag. It'll be cheaper than any of the online places. Quick google search shows Bell Chemical in Tampa.
If you have aspirations of an organic certification, do some more digging to find an organic/non-gmo citric - it's not that much more expensive.
This flies in the face of the thread title of "cheap copper cleaning".
just sent an inquiry for 50lb bags of citric acid, sodium percarbonate and sodium metasilicate (to make my own 'pbw')
Did a run with the baby dragon last night and thought I'd give the backset a go. flushed the baby through with 10L of hot backset and was blown away. Copper went all shiny. Then pulled it down rised it with fresh water and packed it away all shiny and clean. Thanks for the tip.
response from chemical warehouse, 50lb bags should last me a year or more...
Good show that's a nice price on the USP citric, that's pharma grade.
I found that if I leave my boiler closed up, then flush from the top (I have the 180 with the 3/4" TC on top) with hot water and then at the end drain using my chugger pump, it sucks all the remaining liquids from the plates and they drain nicely!
You only use a small % of the sodium met in pbw too, so a 50lb bag will last you a lot longer.
StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand
What's "pbw" lads?
Five Star Powdered Brewery Wash aka PBW. It's a non-caustic cleaning product used in breweries.
Thanks grim, I use to work in a brewery...back in '88...we never had anything called that. We did however have a shite load of pearl caustic.
PBW won't eat copper like caustic soda does...
from the man that developed it:
Charles_Talley: I developed PBW to replace caustic cleaners for Coors Brewing. Coors uses brass filters to sterilize their beer. When they cleaned with caustic 1,700 ppm were lost. Using PBW only only 1.9 ppm were removed from the brass.
a couple good reads:
Chat with Charlie Talley, Founder of Five Star @ BrewBoard
PBW strength @ Northern Brewer
and of course, throw in a John Palmer "How To Brew" reference!
Chapter 2 - Brewing Preparations - 2.2.1 Cleaning Products
yes, the Sodium Metasilicate is only 30%...
MATERIAL SAFETY DATA SHEET (PDF) @ Five Star Chemicals
Thanks i thought it was even less than that from memory of the recipe i read on one of the brew forums a couple years back.
StillDragon Australia & New Zealand - Your StillDragon® Distributor for Australia & New Zealand
Updating old threads, more info here: Cleaning Copper :)
Jewelers use a term "Pickle" for cleaning brass/copper/bronze jewelry and once upon a time they used sulfuric acid, but now they most commonly use a safer, more shelf stable product called Sodium bisulfate.
Sodium bisulfate is an acid salt formed by partial neutralization of sulfuric acid by an equivalent of sodium base, typically in the form of either sodium hydroxide (lye) or sodium chloride.
So people elsewhere on this site said: Use a weak 5% sulfuric acid solution, doped with 1% hydrogen peroxide. rinse, then passivate with a 3% caustic soda solution, rinse, 1% citric acid and rinse again.
The caustic helps remove organic residues. The Sulfuric acid/hydrogen peroxide as per above substitute Sodium bisulfate for the Sulfuric acid.
Use PBW as the caustic, which is a detergent, but is strongly alkaline, so it will act as a buffered caustic. You don't want to use a strong or unbuffered caustic and since the purpose of the caustic is to remove organics, not etch the copper, an alkaline detergent like PBW is a good choice.
Hot citric/caustic works better than cold, 50C is hot enough but won't burn you.