Is ethanol actually in alcoholic drinks? I'm naive, but that's what I read. Is it the same ethanol as gasoline but more human grade? Where can I get these?
Oh, regarding denaturing. At the ethanol plants that supply alcohol for blending with gasoline, they add just a little gasoline to the ethanol to make it undrinkable. The Feds just don't want untaxed alcohol getting out of those plants and into the drinking public's possession.
Yes, there is. It is in common use as a pH adjuster in the food (FCC grade), pharmaceutical (USP grade) and other industries. It is widely used in brewing (by both home brewers and commercial operators) in the UK for pH adjustment where and equimolar mix of it and sulfuric acid as sold for this purpose.Muriatic Acid is hydrochloric acid; not sure if there is food grade version or why you want to use it as such in the first place.
From Latin muria meaning brine from which it is made (or rather salt).Muriatic acid is a historical name for hydrochloric acid.
And in a lot of other applications as well including removing laitance from concrete, cleaning brickwork, adjusting swimming pool pH. It is sold at every hardware store in industrial strength (23 Be').It's a very strong acid used in a variety of industrial processes.
I would advise staying away from it too but it is one of the cheap chemicals that you can still buy (OK, I haven't bought any in quite a few years) AFAIK. Take that back - I bought some in Canada 2 summers ago (used it to adjust the pH of my well).Since you say you're "naive" I would recommend staying away from it since it can be quite dangerous in concentrated form. I doubt there is anything marketed as "food grade" and anything you might buy without a chemist's license is going to be diluted or perhaps not pure.
Alas, 'tis true.From what I gather you need a license to get pure forms of many chemicals these days, it's not like it was.
Yes - if you want acid to do mash acidification, the 88% lactic acid you get at the LHBS is your best bet. Sometimes you might need something a little stronger and, in that case, phosphoric acid from the LHBS is what you need.
Muriatic acid is hydrochloric acid (HCl). You can also make this at home with salt and baking soda, but you would need a flask and some tubing for essentially distilling the HCl gas that will be created. The whole thing is pretty hazardous and you just might burn the nosehairs out of your face, so you shouldn't do it until you have the right equipment and some PPE.
The ethanol at your local gas station (E85, for example) has been denatured to keep people from drinking it. Not sure how it's denatured. Don't use it for anything but fuel.
USP and NF or USP-NF grade would be fine.Do not use any other grades of acid in brewing or food preparation other than FCC or Reagent grade. Lab grade and any other grade could have impurities that you don't want to ingest, like lead and other heavy metals.
You can make it at home but not with salt and baking soda. It is made with salt and hydrochloric acid:
H2SO4 + 2NaCl --> 2HCl(gas) + Na2SO4.
The gas driven off is bubbled through water to form the liquid acid.
I definitely do not recommend that you do this at home even if you could.
Why when phosphoric and lactic are available at most LHBS.For mash acidification I use tartaric acid: a solid, cheap, available from LHBS, non-hazardous, and is a strong organic acid, so you need less.
Why not just add potassium tartrate?Then, I neutralize with food-grade potassium carbonate.
Yep. Takes place at room temperature though if you want it to go to completion you need to heat the mixture.Sulfuric Acid?
Anyway,
NaCl + NaHCO3 + heat --> HCl + Na2CO3?
Yep. Takes place at room temperature though if you want it to go to completion you need to heat the mixture.
Doh!I was correcting your typo above.
My son and I might do the salt/baking soda experiment tonight. He's skeptical too. We'll just use a pH meter to measure success.
Doh!
I'm guessing you are going to get sodium carbonate, salt, water (which will evaporate) and CO2 (which will fly off) but if any HCl is emitted you should be able to smell it. I assume I don't have to tell you to be careful! Waft air from over the container towards you - don't stick your nose down there.
Actually, you would be much better off, from the safety POV, if you bubble the gas through water and check pH but don't forget that the CO2 evolved will drop it a bit. HCl gas will drop it a lot.
I'm thinking that 'ethyl acetate' and 'stovetop' are words that don't belong in the same sentence.
I'm guessing you are going to get sodium carbonate, salt, water (which will evaporate) and CO2 (which will fly off) but if any HCl is emitted you should be able to smell it. I assume I don't have to tell you to be careful! Waft air from over the container towards you - don't stick your nose down there.
Actually, you would be much better off, from the safety POV, if you bubble the gas through water and check pH but don't forget that the CO2 evolved will drop it a bit. HCl gas will drop it a lot.
Muriatic acid is a historical name for hydrochloric acid. It's a very strong acid used in a variety of industrial processes. Since you say you're "naive" I would recommend staying away from it since it can be quite dangerous in concentrated form. I doubt there is anything marketed as "food grade" and anything you might buy without a chemist's license is going to be diluted or perhaps not pure. From what I gather you need a license to get pure forms of many chemicals these days, it's not like it was.
From your post history it looks like you are interested in using it for mash acidification? In that case you'll probably be better suited using more traditional acidification methods (acid malt, lactic acid, minerals). While there's nothing inherently wrong with using it if it's pure (it's just hydrogen and chloride) you are going to need miniscule amounts and you really have to understand chemistry safety procedures so you don't cause serious injury.
Similarly, for every day people the best source of ethanol is neutral spirits. Unless you have a chemist's license and can get the pure lab grade stuff, all other sources have things added to prevent consumption (other alcohols, bittering agents, etc).
Amazing, the things you learn on here. I might still have some chemistry books that told how to make nitro. Mix that with some ethanol & some high test....
We got the smell. And the pH drop.
Equal amts of kosher salt and baking soda were heated and the gas was bubbled into a beaker of cold water.
pH intitial: 8.18
pH final: 5.88
So there aren't any non concentrated forms of HCL acids for sale? I thought I may have seen one. Not sure exactly what its use for in an alcoholic beverage nor what ethanol is for exactly. Is it an extractor? What is it extracting? Hops?
OK I try to stay away from the dangerous stuff so help me out here, would neutral spirits be the option? Would that be the name of the product I should be looking for? Is ethanol safe for human consumption depending on purity? Who would sell these in human grade form?
Interesting. from the numbers (pK's) I didn't think you'd get enough HCl to detect but I guess the sniffer is pretty sensitive. The modest final pH indicates that the yield of the reaction is small - in fact if you hadn't mentioned the smell I'd suggest that the drop was entirely caused by the CO2.
Anyway, if you want to make HCl at home sulphuric acid is the way to go. That's how all the meth labs do it...
So there aren't any non concentrated forms of HCL acids for sale? I thought I may have seen one. Not sure exactly what its use for in an alcoholic beverage nor what ethanol is for exactly. Is it an extractor? What is it extracting? Hops?
OK I try to stay away from the dangerous stuff so help me out here, would neutral spirits be the option?
Would that be the name of the product I should be looking for?
Is ethanol safe for human consumption depending on purity?
Who would sell these in human grade form?
is there a book that shows you what turns into what if you mix what with what?
on Amazon, there are ethanol for sale 200 proof on the industrial and scientific section, here's one:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004M7YFRQ/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
Ethanol is safe so long as its not mixed with something unsafe and you don't consume too much. I will be producing some this afternoon in fact. Mine will be about 6% and mixed with various organic matter (and probably acetaldehyde, if BJCP judges are to be believed).
So when you say 6 percent, how pure was your ethanol? If it's 100%, how do you get down to 6% of your final product, do you dilute it with what?
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