PlainCoil wrote:Usually the seltzer pulls result in a very hard crystal that often flakes off and gets tons of dust into the air when scraping. Occasionally, however, the result is somewhat like the brown/tan/black goopy acetate resin. When SWIM obtained this resin, he just threw it into a small volume of 91% IPA, heated it up until it mostly dissolved, and put it into the freezer.
Fumarates can be troublesome in this way as well, SWIM simply adds a bit of water to prevent the particles from flying and floating about, scrapes the salts to the middle of the dish, and then dry further. SWIM had those problems with the carbonate as well, but he hadn't developed this method at the time.
SWIM will definitely give the IPA wash a go.
Touche Guevara wrote:Do you know whether doing only carbonate pulls would work? I thought I remembered someone in the thread saying they had to pull with vinegar first.
Perhaps that was SWIM, but there weren't enough controlled trials to determine this for sure. SWIM believes as Plaincoil does that keeping the mixture under pressure (IPA or hydrogen peroxide bottles seem to work quite well) is the determining factor for success in this manner of salting.
SWIM also believes that the carbonate is just as heat-sensitive as acetate, so keep evaps around 100F, no more than 115F perhaps.