Why some many answers about PBW concentration?

[Brettomomyces]

not true with launrdy detergent... read the bottle... the amount your supposed to use is dependent on how dirty whatever your washing is... same thing with shampoo or toothpaste really .... a guy going bald with thin hair will need less shampoo than a woman with thick oily hair. or say a mehcanic who gets oil in his hair will likely wash his hair with more shapoo (without measuring it out) Same with someone missing half their teeth (although I agree that person would use a consistent amount... Depending on the size of your brewery and application CIP vs soaking something and rinsing and how soon after brewing you clean... the amount of pbw can vary and still do the job fine...

if it really is 30x times different though I would think itrs more of exactly what was mentioned ...Some pbw guys are trying to sell more product... same reason if you make coffee by using the directions on the can its way too strong for most peoples liking...

This is true, but mostly based on the size of the task at hand. More hair, more teeth, more stuff. I meant more like, it's going to be consistent for the particular user. laundry yea you might use more for a nasty load, or if your job/kids/pets are bad to clothes, but it's not going to vary THAT much. Most people tend to overuse laundry soap as well.

 

[dogbrew]

well to be clear, I'm not bad mouthing the PBW people at all (if you meant me.) I just wished someone had a clear rationale why the answers from Five Star vary so wildly. I have asked Five Star, just not gotten any reply. I like the stuff and plan to continue to use it over cheaper stuff, I just thought it was so odd that their straight-forward flat answers seemed to be so variable. (If they had said "well depending on your water hardness and you humidity and your level of dirtiness, etc, you'll probably want anywhere from X to Z" then there would be little question, but instead they each just gave wildly different flat answers.)

 

[MaxStout]

Really? A pound usually costs me around $4. 6 pound pails are only $2 each?

Nope.

A pound of PBW is about $10. A 6lb. pail of Sun Oxy is around $5.

My point was...PBW is several times more expensive, pound for pound, with no perceptible advantage over ordinary oxy cleaner.

 

[dogbrew]

I think you're looking too hard for people's bonehead mistakes. Everyone makes them. Look at this post from the Brewing Network from a Five Star guy where he lays out a 0.4 - 2.0 oz per gallon usage for homebrewing, and gives an approximate weight-to-volume ratio.

Five Star Guy

It's designed for CIP, and they recommend up to 6-8 oz per gallon for carbon removal. So maybe there were some miscommunications at some point regarding homebrewing vs commercial use. So if you were just starting to use PBW you would use the 0.4 oz per gallon dosage and adjust to suit your needs/cleaning practices. I guess I really don't see the reason for you to be bad-mouthing the Five Star people over this...

Hey, thank you! That helps a ton. I'd just about given up on the internet as a source of information, and boom, you sent a great link! That very same email, the one that he is correcting, is posted on other sites without the correction. So that knocks down one of the huge obstacles to understanding the differences. (And as mentioned, I hope you didn't think I was bad mouthing Five Star, I'm just asking a question that they have not answered.)

 

[wardens355]

Nope.

A pound of PBW is about $10. A 6lb. pail of Sun Oxy is around $5.

My point was...PBW is several times more expensive, pound for pound, with no perceptible advantage over ordinary oxy cleaner.

My understanding is that oxiclean works fine for a lot of things, but that PBW seems to be more effective when doing CIP and where you cannot really scrub. You can formulate your own PBW with oxiclean (75%) and TSP (25%). A more fair comparison might be an 8 lb tub of PBW for $40, although it is still much more expensive. You wouldn't compare the price of 2 oz of NZ hops vs a lb of American hops on a $/lb basis, would you? Probably somewhere around 4 times the expense for PBW vs an oxiclean/TSP homemade mix.

 

[gotraut]

I have used oxyclean+tsp and pbw. I notice a big difference and see pbw as being more effective. I use 1/4 cup per 5 gallons. 8lbs lasts me a while. I typically cip kegs and fermenter.

 

[augiedoggy]

I have used oxyclean+tsp and pbw. I notice a big difference and see pbw as being more effective. I use 1/4 cup per 5 gallons. 8lbs lasts me a while. I typically cip kegs and fermenter.

pbw also rinses away much easier for me.... I too have oxy and pbw. I buy the pbw sold on ebaY in zip lock bags since its close to half the price of my local supply store. (Ill admit I dont measure either though) I use the same rough amount when using either.