Oxiclean Residue

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inspector13

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I'm sorry for the question but time is limited and the search results taking too long to go through. After fermenting a batch I soaked my glass carboy with Sun "Oxiclean" and I can't get the residue off the sides. I'm going to hang out with a local guy a met, for a brew day tomorrow and need a clean carboy to bring home wart.

HELP PLEASE


Thanks for the help!!!!!!!
 
rinse in diluted vinegar or similar mild acid. Starsan will work if you have it.
 
you probably used too much, also, if you start your soak in hot water with a high concentration of oxiclean and it cools, it will leave that residue. I did the same thing to about 80 bottles a few weeks ago, then i found out what happened
 
What does this residue look like -- is it obvious? I use oxyclean on my stuff and hadn't seen it. Want to make sure I am not missing something and leaving gunk in my plastic buckets somehow.
 
I have the same issues with Oxyclean, but only if I leave it to soak for a loooong time. I find if I remove things within 2 days, I don't have an issue. I use Lime-A-Way (an acid) to remove the deposits when they occur. They certainly appear to be mineral in nature. Could also be related to the local water chemistry. We have a Chem Engr in our homebrew club. I'll run it by him.
 
I wonder if it's an issue of using too much cleaner, leaving it too long, or what. Are people rinsing right away? I haven't used the Sun brand, but I've had no problems with OxiClean. I have really hard water - simply boiling tap water for brewing can get a layer of fine, white "sand" to precipitate to the bottom of the pot and leave a film of minerals on the sides. I've soaked bottles in OxiClean overnight and have never gotten any sort of noticeable residue.
 
After a 12 hour soak in Starsan the glass was crystal clean. I the Sun (Oxi) cleaner in the laundry room for the wife.

I'm getting some PBW. Is this an issue it as well.
 
It must have something to do with the minerals in your water. I have very hard water and if I let my items sit too long in Oxyclean I will get this residue. If I use RO water at the same concentration of cleaner and length of time it has no residue.
 
i was worried about the same thing, so i tried a little experiment.
soaked 3 bottles in oxyclean solution then 3 bottles in plain tap water. drained rinsed the exact same way. dried the bottles and both sets had the same spots on them. conclusion i have very hard water...:mug:
 
I have a huge 50 gallon rubbermaid tote and I fill it with hot water (run off my laundry hookup so it fills up quickly) and add 1.5-2 scoops of Dollar Store Oxygen Cleaner. I fill it up about 2 inches above the top of the level of a 12oz bottle and it holds about 70ish bottles at a time. I don't know the exact amount of water but I'll measure next time.

I use it to de-label and it cleans the inside of them out very effectively. I soak for 4 hours to overnight, NEVER LONGER. If you do it longer than it will leave the residue. After a soak I will scrub the label residue off and spray the inside out with a bottle washer hooked up to a hot water source.

If there is residue, a bottle brush works for me but I have never had to resort to the vinegar way.
 
I get a residue whenever I do a delabel soak, or soak for more than a few hours. Where I live, we have insanely hard water, chock full of calcium. That combined with oxiclean and a temperature swing always leaves a deposit on my bottles.... it sucks.

But it's avoidable. I try to limit my soaks to less than 4 hours. Less than that, and a good rinse will take of the residue. If I need more, I automatically get ready for a mild acid rinse (1 cup vinegar in a laundry tub full of water), and a good rinse afterwards.

I was doing some reading that adding a little TSP substitute to your soak will help stop the residue from forming, but I haven't been able to try that yet, as all I can find around here is regular TSP. Still looking......
 
I had the same scale problem on my equipment. Happened two ways:

1) left PBW soaking in my fermenter for a month before I got around to it.

2) soaked 120 bottles too long in oxiclean.

After trying a vinegar solution and also a starsan solution I did not have much luck. I resorted to trying RO water with PBW. THIS WORKED LIKE A CHARM. I believe it had to do something with the scale being mineral deposits and by using RO water the chelating agents in the PBW were able to focus on removing the scale on the walls of the glass. Just my guess BUT it worked for me when nothing else was economically working.

Here is the link to my log of troubles with this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/cleaning-120-bottles-tub-152332/
 
Yes it is. People store Starsan solutions in kegs all the time (similar acidity). Its bleach that is bad for stainless.
 
OMGosh! I was just about to do a search to see what the heck happened with my bottles when I saw this. Exactly the stuff I use, and it only happened this one time I let it sit for a few days. (Lazy!) Thanks for the help!
 
I get a residue whenever I do a delabel soak, or soak for more than a few hours. Where I live, we have insanely hard water, chock full of calcium. That combined with oxiclean and a temperature swing always leaves a deposit on my bottles.... it sucks.

But it's avoidable. I try to limit my soaks to less than 4 hours. Less than that, and a good rinse will take of the residue. If I need more, I automatically get ready for a mild acid rinse (1 cup vinegar in a laundry tub full of water), and a good rinse afterwards.

I was doing some reading that adding a little TSP substitute to your soak will help stop the residue from forming, but I haven't been able to try that yet, as all I can find around here is regular TSP. Still looking......

Interesting. Did a little looking around on this. It seems that actual TSP (Trisodium Phosphate) should be somewhat harder to find. From what I've read, these days most consumer-grade "TSP" is, in fact Sodium Metasilicate - the "other" ingredient in PBW. The brand cited was Red Devil TSP 90.
 
I dont believe you can get true TSP, it is all TSP substitute. I have been mixing oxyclean & TSP 50/50. Been working good so far.
 
You can use EDTA to chelate too. That's what laundry detergent uses.

Automatic dish washing machine detergent has surfactants and chelating agents and I'm shocked (shocked!) that more cost conscious home brewers don't use it. I think if you attempt to build your own detergent and follow general guidelines, you will end up with something close to dish washing detergent. Presumably PBW adds value by being developed specifically for breweries.
 
I usually soak my bottles for less than 48 hours and have never had a problem, but like others had a batch that I had to let soak for 2 weeks and noticed residue on my bottles last night.

I assume that the residue isn't leftover oxyclean, but magnesium and calcium hydroxide, which precipitate slowly in high pH solutions. Using tap water and oxyclean would cause this, as sodium percarbonate solutions are high pH (~12), and there is plenty of calcium and magnesium in my tap water.

The calcium and magnesium hydroxide theory would fit with everyone's experience too - no flavor from the residue, vinegar works great to remove it, and no residue is apparent when RO water is used instead of tap.

In the future, I will try to keep the bottles in the soak for less time, and might even filter my tap water to reduce the effect in case I have to leave them soak for an extended period again.
 
I had my first experience with this today after a week long soak to try to rid my better bottle of some particularly stubborn gunk. After reading this thread, I did a warm water/starsan soak for about ten minutes, and that did the trick. I love this forum.
 
What I can never understand, is why the long soaks with anything?
OxyFree (Oxyclean without the scent and some other stuff) and 20 minutes in HOT water is enough to strip any paper label I've come across.
And usually 1-2 hours tops to soak something for a cleaning.
 
I have had labels (both beer and especially wine) that won't come off without a razor blade and elbow grease, even after 2 hrs in oxyclean.

That said, after an hour or whatever I usually start stripping them and if it needs a razor blade... it needs a razor blade.
 
What I can never understand, is why the long soaks with anything?
OxyFree (Oxyclean without the scent and some other stuff) and 20 minutes in HOT water is enough to strip any paper label I've come across.
And usually 1-2 hours tops to soak something for a cleaning.

Laziness. Usually I start the soak late at night, and let them soak for a day or two until I get back to them.
 
The only time I had residue with oxyclean was when my softener ran out of salt and I soaked my bottles in very hard water. I had to get the water soft again, do another soak and then scrub inside and out. Hard water is bad news if you use oxyclean.
 
+1 on vinegar.

Avoid getting to this by cutting back on your concentration. Use 1/3 scoop for 5 gal and you'll be golden. Also soak and rinse with same temp warm water.
 
My residue showed up after I dunked bottles, got busy, and pulled them out two weeks later.

At least most of the labels were gone. A couple were still surprisingly intact.
 
I soak for only about an hour in the hottest water I can find. Never had an issue with oxyclean residue and everything comes off.
 
Oxyclean with TSP at 150F is a nice mix. If you can order the 50lbs five gallon bucket of PBW it's as cheap as anything else. Hot PBW, cycled from one vessel to another, is a God send.
 
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