Oxyclean vs. Sight gauge?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ExHempKnight

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2010
Messages
117
Reaction score
3
Location
Roanoke
I just brewed a batch with my new kettle. The brewing went great, but I left the pot to soak overnight in some oxyclean, and SWMBO just woke me up to tell me there's water all over the floor. To my dismay, the sight gauge on my kettle is all cracked up, which allowed a slow leak over the course of the night.

I'm wondering if the Oxyclean soak is responsible. Anyone else with a similar experience?
 
Coulda been a temp thing.....maybe you cooled the kettle too fast?

Funny, for anyone that's been brewing a while, we've all discovered "something" on the floor...:D
 
Given the way it was cracked, but not broken apart, I doubt it was physical shock. It may well have been thermal shock, though I didn't heat or cool it rapidly.

Interesting. And frustrating.
 
Is it a polycarbonate tube? Is it a vertical or radial crack? I've heard of this one other time and it was also after an oxiclean soak. However, I've left pieces of polycarbonate in various strength solutions of oxi, starsan, pbw, etc for a week and non of them had any effect. I also believe it might come down to thermal shock but I'm not sure.
 
I believe it to be polycarbonate... It's the bargainfittings sight gauge. And the cracks are radial.

Though it seems the most likely culprit, I kinda doubt thermal shock. After the boil, I used my CFC to cool the wort, then let the pot continue cooling to room temp naturally. I rinsed the pot out with plain hot tap water a couple of times, then filled it with about 5-6 gallons of hot tap water (something I'd done several times before, when leak checking, graduating the sight gauge, etc. with no problems) and a couple of scoops of Oxyclean. Stirred, and let sit overnight.

Woke up this morning to a puddle.
 
Not the entire length, but the portion that had the cleaner solution in it.

I'm at work right now, but I can take pictures of the remaining portion when I get home later tonight.

I'm 99.9% sure I didn't bump it. The only other thing I can possibly think of... I had placed the kettle on the floor, and turned it so the valve and sight gauge were facing the wall... Maybe my cat tried to squeeze between? Though I can't really see that either, as the space wasn't THAT narrow, and the tube has some give to it.

But maybe... Warm/hot water in tube + stupid cat = cracked sight gauge? That's somewhat consistent with my kind of luck...
 
This is very odd stuff for sure, and it sounds exactly like what happened to a customer of mine a while back. After trying a LOT of test soaks on "virgin" polycarb tubing, I even thought that maybe a boil cycle followed by a soak would more closely simulate the actual problem but every sample came out looking brand new with no damage. The only thing I didn't try was overheating the tubing (over 260F) and then soaking.
 
My stove was barely able to maintain a boil on 3 gallons. I'm sure I didn't overheat the tube lol.
 
Sorry to dredge up an old thread but...

I've noticed the same thing. I like to soak my Keggle in Oxyclean for a couple days after brewing both for cleaning and removing labels from any new bottles I have laying around. I installed one of Bobby_Ms sight glasses a few months ago and it cracked during one of these soaks. I figured I had inadvertently bumped it so I ordered a new one. It cracked after the first brew or two as well, even though I was extremely careful while cleaning that time.

Recently, I bought some polycarbonate tubing from McMaster Carr and threaded it just like Bobby does and it cracked during a soak as well. Since I have a surplus of tubing now, I figured I'd experiment. I re-threaded the other end of the sight-glass and re-installed. I filled the Keggle to about 7 gallons of plain water and let it sit for about two weeks--no cracks. I drained and refilled with 7 gallons of oxyclean yesterday and found the first crack this morning.

The cracks tend to be low in the tube but not necessarily at the bottom. They also tend to start radially and then propagate at a 45-ish degree angle. They almost look like textbook shear failure from torsion loads for you engineering geeks. They also seem to start from the inside of the tube rather than outside like you would expect a physically induced crack to start.

My MLT has a similar sight-glass installed that has never seen Oxyclean nor has it failed.
 
An engineer at 5-star told me over the phone that alkaline cleaners can steal carbon from the polycarbonate or something like that. My next question was why the PBW tech sheet says "safe on polycarbonate surfaces" without any caveats. No answer.

Here's the really confusing rub. No matter what I do, I can't make it happen using my tap water. I've left a test pot filled to the top with various strengths of oxyclean or PBW for weeks straight. No crazing (cracking). My recommendation via the website is to limit the length of any PBW or oxy soaks to 30-60 minutes. If you want to do more than that, remove the kit temporarily and plug the hole with a stopper. There must be something about certain tap water chemistry that makes the difference. I know for sure based on how few reports I get.
 
Well there's definitely something happening. I'm up to three perfectly radial cracks now. Since this is a sacrificial piece of tubing, I'm going to try soaking a batch made with RO drinking water. I'll report back here.

For the record Bobby, this is no slam on your products. They are extremely well made and I'd reccomend your stuff to anyone.
 
I had the same problem with my sight glass. I used to brew and clean everything up to the point my kettle full of oxyclean soaking. Usually I would let that sit overnight and clean/drain the kettle out the next day. A few months ago I got busy, it sat for 4-5 days and I found that I had a bunch of cracks in my sight glass when I finally got around to cleaning...

I went to Bobby's website and saw the disclaimer about the prolonged soak. I just ordered another one and chalked this up as one of life's lessons about being lazy! Now the possibility of sight glass failure motivates me to finish clean up ON brew day - which is actually a good thing :)

Interesting that it seems to have to with water chemistry. Portland, OR has very soft water so maybe there are minerals we don't have that help prevent this??
 
Hardness or softness in the water is certainly not the problem then. Ours is quite hard down here.

I've re-tapped and re-installed my sacrificial tube. I'll be filling it with RO or distilled water this evening.
 
It survived two days of RO with no cracks. I just mixed up a batch using tap water run through an RV filter.
 
Two days soaking in the filtered water batch and still no cracks. Whatever it is, activated charcoal seems to take it out.
 
Unfortunately, I don't know where to go from here without breaking out my old chemistry books. That's probably more effort than it's worth (not to mention most likely hopeless based on my current chemistry skills) unless someone out there has any ideas.

Anyway, now I know what not to do and won't feel bad ordering some more calibration stickers.
 
10 years ago or so I had a pair of glasses with poly-carbonate lens fail in a similar fashion. One lens cracked completely in half and the other had a series of spider like radial cracks. They were barely a year old and the place that sold them said it was due to improper cleaning solution. I thought they were full of **** but maybe there is a golden BB.

It's crazy, the stuff seems so tough.
 
I have been having the same issue with my well water, PBW and two of Bobby's Sightglasses. I talked with Bobby today and he gave me the scoop on what he had gotten out of Five Star. The first one I thought I bumped it or stressed it, but not the second one I have only had in place for a few brews. Maybe Ravenshead and I need to send some water to AJ, and his big chemistry laden brain can figure it out. Sounds like it is pretty rare, but that's just my luck!

On a side note, Bobby made it right even though I was prepared to buy another one from him and was very quick with his response. Great guy, even better products! Thanks Bobby.
 
Forgot this the first time, but to add to the Polycarb story. My wife had a pair of lenses like Starman said crack up on her and the place she got them from told her it was the cleaner, too. They said it was the ammonia in the cleaner. Don't know if that helps out the Chemistry buffs. Also, when I rinse my copper Immersion Chiller with my Hot tap water, I don't use tap water for beer, it turns dark red to purple.
 
i have also destroyed poly measuring cups buy using them to soak small parts in Oxyclean. Wife suggested i use glass, but the last measuring cup lasted about 18 months.
 
not a sight glass, but i quickly went through 2 auto-syphon tubes, letting them soak in PBW for a couple days after a racking, then noticing the crazed "sheared" looking cracks that leaked. now that i don't let it soak, the third has lasted for some time.
 
ahacreative said:
not a sight glass, but i quickly went through 2 auto-syphon tubes, letting them soak in PBW for a couple days after a racking, then noticing the crazed "sheared" looking cracks that leaked. now that i don't let it soak, the third has lasted for some time.

This is good to know, I was gonna soak mine for a few days, glad you posted this thanks.
 
Keep in mind, when I used filtered water (Walmart RV filter) the cracks didn't appear even after days of soaking.

The crackling phenomena has something to do with a common chemical in many water supplies plus PBW/Oxy-clean. I'm guessing chloramine but I don't know for sure.
 
Sorry, Ravenshead. I use my Softened, clear water rust laden well water to clean my BK with one of Bobby's sightglasses and I still have the problem. I don't think I had the problem when I was using the hard water after forgetting to fill the softener though.

What I am doing now to protect the sightglass is pretty simple. I put the large white cap off of an orange carboy cap on the open end of the sightglass before I fill the BK with Cleaning solution. A small amount of Keg grease helps to keep an airtight seal. This cap holds air in the sightglass keeping the cleaner out.
 
Crap.

How did I miss this issue?

My BK sight glass looks like a spider web. At least I have replacement parts on the way.

No more nice long oxy soaks in the BK, I guess. More elbow grease.

:(
 
Sorry, Ravenshead. I use my Softened, clear water rust laden well water to clean my BK with one of Bobby's sightglasses and I still have the problem. I don't think I had the problem when I was using the hard water after forgetting to fill the softener though.

What I am doing now to protect the sightglass is pretty simple. I put the large white cap off of an orange carboy cap on the open end of the sightglass before I fill the BK with Cleaning solution. A small amount of Keg grease helps to keep an airtight seal. This cap holds air in the sightglass keeping the cleaner out.

Yeah, I think we'd ruled out hardness as a contributer. I've got pretty hard water but I don't have a problem if I run it though a charcoal filter first. Charcoal doesn't take out hardness so that can't be it.
 
The mystery continues. I've now had the same piece of polycarb sitting in PBW for 21 days. I have to keep adding more tap water as it evaporates out of the cup. There has to be something very specific about some water supplies that cause it. At least we know that carbon filtering reduces the effect but I'm stumped. Carbon takes out organics.
 
Ive cracked lots of those tubes that I used for racking canes. They dont like hot soaks with oxyclean and PBW. The temp and cleanser combo can wreak havoc after 30 mins.
 
Back
Top