OxyClean Beware?

Ok, I Like many others can't stand to use bottles with labels. Also like many others I have struggled with delableification (if that is even a word) of bottles. I tried soaking some of my more stubborn bottles for a few days in some oxyclean (was a powder form, like one might use for laundry). When I tried cleaning them after a week, (having forgotten about them) I saw that there was a white gritty film on all the bottles. I tried to scrub it off with some detergent, but to no avail. The Oxyclean was so powerful that it actually etched the surface of the glass, even to the point of pitting it in some places on a few of the bottles. Using some CRL bio-clean I was able to salvage 5 of the 17 bottles I had soaking, the, others I deemed to damaged to be worth the effort.
This is my only experience with Oxyclean, and I may not be using the same type as others who have used it successfully in the past, but I would definitely caution against prolonged exposure to this stuff.

Beer-Monger

The white film is caused by hard water. For whatever reason, the minerals react with the oxiclean and if bottles are left soaking for more than a couple hours, it creates deposits on the bottles. This also happens with PBW but not as bad.

A light acid rinse will remove it ie. white vinegar or Star San.

As far as etching glass, I've never heard of Oxiclean doing that before...

Your bottles aren't etched, they just have scale on them, it's pretty common and your bottles will be fine after a soak in a weak acid like vinegar and water, Starsan, or lemon juice and water, and rinsed again.

Way too many people have wonderful success with Oxyclean. I'm inclined to agree with the others, it is probably water scale.

If Oxyclean etched glass I'd have about 500 ruined bottles by now...

Agreed, a buddy of mine does the same things, soaks them, forgets about them, water evaporrates, scale is left behind.

Dip them in vinegar, and rinse, film gone.

interesting thread. is it safe to assume this brewer would be best advised not to use calcium or gypsum ?

Kula said:

interesting thread. is it safe to assume this brewer would be best advised not to use calcium or gypsum ?

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I don't understand your post.

Yep... as with all good things Oxclean has an ugly side, but luckily, we've found the antidote: DON'T LEAVE ANYTHING SOAKING IN OXYCLEAN FOR ANY TIME MEASURED IN DAYS WEEKS MONTHS OR YEARS!

.... hahahaha and if you eventually do, vinegar to the rescue

Thanks for the advice I will Try a vinegar water solution on 1/2 of the bottles that I didn't already throw out. I honestly did have two bottles that appeared to have actual pitting in the glass around the rims. Wish I would have saved them now for you non-believers. Hopefully the vinegar solution will do the trick on the ones that I saved. BTW whats a good ratio to mix that vinegar solution?

Thanks all for the advice.

beer-monger said:

I honestly did have two bottles that appeared to have actual pitting in the glass around the rims. Wish I would have saved them now for you non-believers. BTW whats a good ratio to mix that vinegar solution?

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1. Perhaps the bottles were already pitted, but you didn't inspect htem closely as you did when you noticed the scale that formed on your bottles.

2. You can use straight vinegar if you want to, it isn't going to damage the bottles, and if you have a bunch that need the scaling removed, then using the straight vinegar might be the fastest way to get the scaling off the bottles--you can under-dilute, but with your project you want to take care not to over-dilute.

Hope that helps!

Cheers!

ditto to niferious +1

agreed. the stronger the better... and now you know the one pitfall of oxyclean

if oxyclean COULD pit glass, what the heck would it do to everyone's cotton t-shirts! or your washer....

frydogbrews said:

if oxyclean COULD pit glass, what the heck would it do to everyone's cotton t-shirts! or your washer....

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Well played sir...well played.

Schnitzengiggle said:

I don't understand your post.

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I think Kula is saying that with hard water the OP would not have to add calcium or gypsum to his water for brewing.

Nice answer to an almost 10 year old thread.

kh54s10 said:

Nice answer to an almost 10 year old thread.

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Whoops! I did not look at the date! I'm not even sure how I got to this thread.

Sundy said:

Whoops! I did not look at the date! I'm not even sure how I got to this thread.

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It probably popped up in the "similar threads" box down below.
VVVVVV

BrewZer said:

It probably popped up in the "similar threads" box down below.
VVVVVV

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Yup.

My doctor advised me to stop drinking OxyClean. I explained to him that I was getting stains in my underwear - yellow in front, brown in back. And that I thought drinking Oxy was helping to mitigate that. "No matter," he said. "Stop." I told him it was always the Free and Clear. He said it didn't matter. I didn't see a diploma on the wall. He might be a quack.