Sodium hydroxide (caustic) question

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Cposten

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Hey,
I recently bought a 7.75gal sanke keg and wanted to clean it my self after it arrived to be safe. I filled it with a caustic solution and let it sit over night. When I looked the morning the water level, which I filled to the brim was a bit below the top valve spout. I looked around and under the keg but the is no sign of a leak, some wetness where the base was but I can't see any leak point where there is a trail of water or a drip. I'm not sure if its just condensation from the heat trapped under the base from the hot water/caustic solution. Basically what I was wondering is if caustic some how evaporated the water or something. Have never used it before some don't know what should be happening. Thanks.
 
Depending, caustic might have raised the water temp, which cooled, and the water vol. lessened.
You shouldn't work with caustic, cause you can get a nasty burn which you won't notice until too late.
 
Caustic is bad. I work in a brewery and had some splash (still not exactly sure how it happened) on my ankle while I was rinsing out a jockey box for a beer fest. 2 hours later my ankle felt itchy so pulled my sock down expecting a blister or something and saw the first picture. My sock had a slime layer of my own skin stuck to it.

The second picture was about 1.5 months later and the wound took about 3 months to heal.

I've got a fairly badass scar now.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Home Brew mobile app

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Jesus dude, that's miserable. I work at a winery and we found it and they said toss it so I took it. Thanks for the heads up. PBW here I come.
 
Base solutions will hurt/dissolve you worse than acid. Caustic is one, anhydrous ammonia is another. Nothing left but bones. You are doing the right thing by not using it if you are not trained and don't have the proper safety clothing.
 
I just threw up in my mouth a little...

Puss. ;) As a former claim adjuster you haven't seen anything until you look at Highway Patrol pics of the pieces left of someone trying to cross the interstate and got tagged by a semi.

I just got a new Duda Diesel plate chiller in the mail this past week. I have been searching for about 2 hours on how to properly clean it. Most folks say to do a lye wash a few times a year.

I'm still looking for the procedure that I will use.
 
Puss. ;) As a former claim adjuster you haven't seen anything until you look at Highway Patrol pics of the pieces left of someone trying to cross the interstate and got tagged by a semi.[...]

What - you had to confirm the fatality from the pieces?

Jeeze....

Cheers!
 
Yes you have to document everything. I think there were 3 pieces on that one.

Definitely have to be extra careful around those chemicals.
 
Puss. ;) As a former claim adjuster you haven't seen anything until you look at Highway Patrol pics of the pieces left of someone trying to cross the interstate and got tagged by a semi.

I just got a new Duda Diesel plate chiller in the mail this past week. I have been searching for about 2 hours on how to properly clean it. Most folks say to do a lye wash a few times a year.

I'm still looking for the procedure that I will use.

I use sodium hydroxide (lye) all the time in my metal plating hobby.
Wear eye protection, face shield, long rubber gloves, protective clothing and footwear.
Use pure sodium hydroxide. If you can find Red Devil drain cleaner, or Lowes sometimes sells a crystal drain cleaner that is 100% sodium hydroxide, that's what you want. Open the bottle and look in and make sure is is all white crystals. The label may say what it is, but not always.
Anyway, mix about 1/2 cup of sodium hydroxide to 1 gallon of cool water. When you mix it, it will get hot. Never mix it into hot water... it may actually start boiling, splash the caustic solution all over the place (you) and maybe melt the bucket.
It could take the finish off of your sink faucet and drain. It will definitely attack anything aluminum. Don't use it on aluminum pots! Use it outside. It may off-gas.
It will not affect SS or the copper brazing used on the plate chillers. Fill the plate chiller and let it set for awhile. I would not leave it overnight, but several hours will pretty much liquefy (see picture above) anything organic.
Carefully pour back into the bucket, then carefully pour the waste down a sanitary sewer (your toilet, assuming you're NOT on a septic system) including any rinse water.
Hook it up to your brewery, get a pot of boiling water going, and pump it through, reversing direction several times until clear.
 
Multiple options. One of the best things to do is to add a metal strainer at the bottom of your kettle to remove these particles before the wort enters the chiller, but some recipes require you to leave those in.

Most important thing to do is backflush the wort side with hot water after each use. This will knock most of gunk out before it ever becomes a serious clog. You will also want to sanitize it right before each use, either a lye bath, or pbw, or starsans. For most brewers these two steps alone will be all you ever need to do. We tend to use and prefer lye, but that’s just because we already have several tons on hand for making biodiesel (where the diesel in DudaDiesel comes from). We carry 99+% lye for anyone looking for it: http://www.dudadiesel.com/search.php?query="sodium+hydroxide" PBW and Starsans won’t unclog the unit as well, but they sanitize just as well and are far safer.

If your wort is really hoppy, or you’ve just been using it for years on end, you will notice more permanent clogs which can be seen by the decreased output flowrate of your wort (the unit honeycombs with multiple fluid paths inside, so its near impossible to clog it to the point of it being unusable, but it can clog to where you lose efficiency). In this event you will first want to flush with a lye solution to break apart any oils or organics holding the chunks in, and then for the more serious protein pieces you will want to place your chiller in your oven and set it to self-cleaning mode for 2-3 hours and let everything simply burn out. One last wash with water can then remove the ash left inside.
 
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