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KarateExplosion Root Beer Follower
Joined: Jul 01, 2007 Posts: 15
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Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject: Cleaning droppers |
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I've recently been trying to make my own root beer recipes using herbs and wintergreen oil, with propylene glycol. I'm using a dropper, since the amounts are very small. Currently when I switch from propylene glycol to wintergreen, and when I'm done with the dropper, I just rinse it in water and/or soap water, fill it a few times (which is tough because I can't take off the end), and squirt it out. Then I toss it in the dishwasher, although I don't really think much soap water gets up inside from that. I'm not sure how effective that is in cleaning it.
Does anyone have suggestions on the best way to clean a dropper? Will detergent effectively clean it when it has been filled with oils that don't necessarily dissolve in water by themselves?
Also, currently I'm using around 10 drops of propylene glycol to 1 drop of oil. Is that a good amount? If I wanted to use gum arabic as a foam stabilizer, how much would be good to add of that?
Thanks in advance. |
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parsa Home Brew Guru
Joined: Dec 15, 2003 Posts: 50 Location: Escondido, CA
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:00 am Post subject: |
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Both methyl salicylate (oil of wintergreen) and propylene glycol are fairly polar molecules and miscible with water (the latter more so of course). Just squirting a bit should be good, especially if that's all you use it for. Using the oil first, then the PG might help. They're basically chemicals, so I can't see it as much of a problem anyway. There are also disposable plastic transfer pipettes of many types and sizes that you can buy in large quantities if you want.
Just google: disposable plastic pipettes |
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aruzinsky Root Beer Connoisseur
Joined: Oct 13, 2004 Posts: 161 Location: IL, USA
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Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:51 pm Post subject: Re: Cleaning droppers |
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KarateExplosion wrote: |
(which is tough because I can't take off the end)
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The ends on my droppers are easy to take off. I bought my stoppers at http://www.camdengrey.com/ . I just run hot water through the droppers with the ends removed. If there is residual odor left from a distilled essential oil, the oil evaporates along with the water in a couple of days. If you can't smell the residue, it is practically clean. However, if the essential oil is expressed rather than steam distilled (not the case for wintergreen), then it will leave non-volatile residue that is very hard to clean. |
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crazylawnguy Root Beer Follower
Joined: Dec 20, 2007 Posts: 28 Location: mich.
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Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:10 am Post subject: Re: Cleaning droppers |
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try, a little dishwater in a glass dish squeze a couple times.then rinse.then do it again in bleach solution. the bleach will also take the rootbeer smeel out of rubber. |
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KarateExplosion
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Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:58 pm Post subject: Re: Cleaning droppers |
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Dishwater in a glass, then squeezing it up has been one of the things I do to clean, and it seems to be ok. I haven't tried bleach though.
Thanks for the help you guys. By the way, aruzinsky, I think I got my droppers from camdengrey.com but I'm not sure. I know I've browsed that particular page before. So I'm wondering now if the end can come off and I just haven't been doing it right. How do you get yours off? I've tried unscrewing it, and lightly just pulling on the end and stuff, but I don't want to pull too hard in case I break it. |
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