BLC- Beer Line Cleaner

[chezzesteak]

does this stuff hold? i love it and love cleaning my parts with it but i now have 4 gallons of it, on accident, i wondered if i can keep it in a spare keg to use in a few weeks?

 

[dallasdb]

It is the same product as PBW just in a different packaging.

It should hold fine, for how long I'm not sure. I've had cleaner in a keg or bucket for up to a month or more and never had issues. I usually dump only when it gets "dirty."

Don't forget to charge your keg with CO2 and purge the oxygen, it will stay fresh longer!

 

[shortyjacobs]

Definitely not the same as PBW.

BLC is KOH, (similar to "caustic", which is NaOH....same idea).

PBW is sodium metasilicate and a bunch of percarbonates and some surfactants. It's an oxygen generator, like Oxiclean.

That being said, I have no clue how BLC keeps, but I'm pretty sure it would be "forever". KOH is a nice, stable ionic compound. Probably will last a long time even after you dilute it, since no chemical reaction is happening in it, (like with oxyclean or PBW losing all their percarbonates, or StarSan getting eaten up by the Mg and Ca in your hard water).

 

[chromados]

I thought of the same thing and ask the Company, and basically they said that would be fine for a short time but over time it will start to damage the keg as it is so caustic. I never went ahead with it because I figured it wasnt worth potentially damaging a keg for something pretty cheap.

So I would say go for it but dont keep it too long. And I agree, BLC is the best line cleaner out there. Just throw a little in the bottom of an empty keg and pump it though the lines.

Chromados

 

[shortyjacobs]

If you're worried about keeping it in a keg, you can always store it in glass or plastic. I agree, strong caustic and stainless aren't always awesome with each other.

 

[pjj2ba]

BLC should be stored in a well sealed container. A KOH solution will slowly absorb CO2 out of the air and reduce it's effectiveness. It should never be stored in a glass bottle with a ground glass stopper. The KOH will, I assume since NaOH does this, slowly react with the glass and stick the stopper so bad there is no way to open it

 

[ocluke]

Definitely not the same as PBW.

BLC is KOH, (similar to "caustic", which is NaOH....same idea).

PBW is sodium metasilicate and a bunch of percarbonates and some surfactants. It's an oxygen generator, like Oxiclean.

That being said, I have no clue how BLC keeps, but I'm pretty sure it would be "forever". KOH is a nice, stable ionic compound. Probably will last a long time even after you dilute it, since no chemical reaction is happening in it, (like with oxyclean or PBW losing all their percarbonates, or StarSan getting eaten up by the Mg and Ca in your hard water).

Is the confusion here over two products with the same acronym?

• BLC (Beer Line Cleaner) by National Chemicals, Inc., and...
• BLC (Beverage Line Cleaner/PBW) by Five Star Chemicals & Supply, Inc.

I'm pretty sure Five Star Chemicals doesn't make a product called Beer Line Cleaner or Beverage Line Cleaner...it's just that they use that phrase to describe their PBW product....and [understandably so] people then confuse it with the product BLC by National Chemicals.