marsofold's tek...says to add lye to HOT water and then add that mixture to the acid cook juice. i know that a glass jug works best for this because of the heat.

but...

if you can do an entire stb in a milk jug...and seeing as how you're only extracting dmt from juice instead of actual bark (meaning less lye...and less work for the lye to do)...could you just add lye to the juice? or does the lye need water to react? just curious. it would be much easier if you could just add lye to the juice. or should i just add lye to room temp water and then add to plastic jug?

any thoughts/experience?

thanks

I've always been told that you add the lye to cold/lukewarm water, as the reaction gives so much heat off. If you start with cold water, within a minute or two the glass jar will be too hot to hold, just by the dissolving of the lye.

This process will actually create weak spots in the glass, if the solid pieces of lye are left to react in one place, instead of stirring them. I don't think it would be particularly safe to do with plastic.

Regarding adding the lye straight into the acid, SWIM thinks that might be dangerous in the amounts of energy it would release at once, but someone with more chemistry background would know better.

During my first A/B I put quite a bit of lye (way more than needed) straight into the jug containing my cook juice. The juice was still very hot too and it all bubbled up and spilled out all over my kitchen counter. It was very sloppy and I now all ways let everything cool and make a separate base/water solution to add separately.

you add lye straight to the plastic jug in most stb teks. i'm sure there isn't enough water in the acid wash juice to react properly, so can you add lye to water in a separate jug/container/what have you and then add it to acid wash?

only asking cuz i like to do my pulls from a milk jug (so you can bend it in and force the naptha layer really close to the lid). so, as of now, i let it settle in a milk jug, add it to glass jug to add the lye/water and then throw it back in a milk jug. just trying to eliminate the constant transferring, if possible.

yeah. i let my acid juice settle for awhile first. like....i soak all my bark in vinegar water for a day. then do 3 separate 3 hour crock pot boils the next day. i let these juices sit and cool over night. the next day, i pour off all juices from the sludge at bottom. so now i have x-amount of jugs with clean, cool cook juice.

can i add lye to room temp water in a jar/measuring cup/or whatever, then add that base water to the juice? i know that with marso's tek...adding lye to HOT water would probably eat through the plastic jug but if it's just room temp water, maybe not? i'm just trying to eliminate any unnecessary steps. i don't know better myself so i'm asking.

this

the dissociation of NaOH in water is an exothermic reaction.
there is no need to heat the water, and is generally discouraged.

thanks benz. so then my next question is...do i actually need to add lye to water and then to juice? or can i just add lye to juice? i wanna do it right but would like to keep things as simple as possible.

thanks

I would think the main census would be to make a separate solution of NaOH with water and then add it to the mimosa wine. It is definitely possible to just add the lye to the soup directly, but when i did it, i experienced problems. I think that was mainly due to heat opposed to anything else, but i am not 100% sure if it is ok to do even when wine has cooled down. I can't think of why it wouldn't be ok.