I asked a related question some time ago and never really got an answer. I need to preface this by saying that I'm not a chemist, nor do I play one on TV. The MSDS for BLC and Lye suggest that they are, essentially, the same thing -- Sodium Hydroxide (also, listed under synonyms for Lye is Soda Ash, which is actually sodium carbonate, so I'm not sure exactly what that means). Can I use Lye from Ace Hardware to clean my beer lines instead of the pricier BLC from my LHBS? If not, why not? ("Would you drink Drano?" is not an acceptable retort, since I also wouldn't drink BLC) Does anybody have any insight into this? I hate to just assume it's ok without having somebody to point the finger at when things go terribly, terribly wrong. Any other readily available hardware store chemicals we can use instead of the pricier 'specialty' stuff?
Here is the email for CEO of National Chemical the mfg of BLC. I think he has a Ph.D. in chemistry or some $hit from a business card I had from him. Shoot him an email.I'm sure he will be willing to give you some drawn out confusing response. [email protected] And is BLC really that expensive? $13.00 or so a bottle?It lasts quite a while.
Well that is a good question. I am not a chemist either but use a lot of beerline cleaner. My answer would be yes that you could use plain lye, having said that most commercial beerline cleaners use surfactants to reduce surface tension which increases its ability to both fill the line better and remove the cleaner when rinsing. 80% or so of any alkaline beerline cleaners is just lye. Cleaning with pure lye would be a bit of an experiment or you could also add a little other chemicals to reduce the surface tension of the lye in aqueous solution.
Oh and if you were worried about tasting cleaner after using lye I would be as worried than using a acidic cleaner like phosphoric acid. I have noticed, even with acidic beers, that they will flavor lines where as alkaline liquids don't. But never tried pure lye so if it did just neutrulize it with something slightly acid. That also works if you get some on your skin.
