25 replies to this topic

[MyaCullen]

The most terrifying brewery chemical by far is Nitric Acid...mostly used to passivate new stainless steel...its just plain scary.

Anything that will eat glass should be scary, yikes.

[MolBasser]

I've had numerous caustic burns, all of them when wearing full protective gear. The pain isn't too intense, but it WILL leave a scar. All the burns have come from the concentrated liquid caustic, I've never had issues with working strength or powdered.At a brewery I used to work at we cleaned the kettle with RAZE, a cholorinated caustic and I was very, very scared of that stuff.Peroxyacetic acid is pretty scary stuff, too. It'll turn your skin white and sometimes that skin will just slough away, other times it will be fine a couple hours.The most terrifying brewery chemical by far is Nitric Acid...mostly used to passivate new stainless steel...its just plain scary.

Yep. All one of my caustic burn came concentrated liquid caustic. A little drip splashed up onto my arm and I didn't notice it untill I felt an ich and scratched it and a BB sized chunk of arm sloughed out of my arm. Cool Scar.Working strength caustic I don't mind. If I get some on me I just calmly rinsed it off, no real need to hurry.Any cleaning chemical, by definition, is dangerous to some degree.BrewBasser

[MolBasser]

So we use it at around 1% solution. We measure the conductivity as a measure of its strength and for kettles and heavily soiled stuff that is ~ 130 MS (~2%) while wortlines and less soiled stuff gets around 70 MS (~1%).BrewBasser

[BikeBrewer]

Is Draino only caustic, or are there other additives?

[HoppingFrog Brewing]

I use Caustic and Love it like Brewbasser it is a wonderful cleaner. I use the brewery strenght caustic the PH is 13 and at 160F it will take your skin off. I have a nice scar from poring 1/2 cup of cleaner into 5 gal of 180F+ water I had a volcano in the brewery and a big blister where the granual hot caustic landed on my geans. I whear a cheep ty-vec suit,golves, and glasses. I learned to love it and respect it. the caustic cleaner is a brewerys best friend and is often used to clean 15 gal kegs without scrubing. If the brewerys use it for comercial cleaning I think we can use it in the home brew brewery. I use my boil kettle to keep the solution hot . I have also built a transfer hose for mult keg cleaning. Liq out to a air in I use Compressed air to move cleaner from one keg to another. I also rinse kegs with a liq in connected to my spray nosel. whick is connected to a hot water heater set at 190F. oh ah Ill clean 10 kegs in 45-to an hour..

[HoppingFrog Brewing]

That is the same working strength Of 1% for light grime/sugars and 2% for heavy. The stuff I use is from Excell APA and in a granual form and you add it slow to the water not fast.