Saturday, June 9, 2012

In a pickle. All about pickling solutions and how to dispose of them.



It's Q & A time, and one group of frequently asked questions sent to my email inbox is all about pickle. So, since for every 1 student who asks, at least 10 more were wondering about the same thing, I thought I would share some helpful and hopefully not too boring information about that funny cleaning solution we jewelers call pickle.

What is pickle?
Pickle is the solution used to clean metal, especially after soldering - to remove baked on flux and oxides that have formed on the metal. The oxides are typically concentrations of copper in the metal or alloy that come to the surface during annealing and soldering. The pickle strips these oxides, called fire scale from the surface.

For example, the copper in sterling (an alloy of 925 parts fine silver and 75 parts copper), concentrates on the surface of the metal in a not too handsome black or copper colored stain when it is heated with a torch in an oxygen rich environment, or what we lay people call "air". Even though soldering or annealing in a vacuum or room filled with inert gas may help to stop fire scale, I'm addicted to breathing oxygen and don't have any immediate plans to stop.

First point about pickle that is often confusing to students is that pickle removes fire scale, not fire stain. Fire scale is the oxide that sits on top of the surface, drawn up and through the metal by the heat and oxygen. Fire stain, is the dark grey or copper colored oxide that is still inside the metal, visible just under the surface. Fire stain can't be removed by normal pickling and must be sanded off with abrasives. So, when students first use pickle, they're stunned to still see copper stains on their sterling, even after soaking it for a long, long time. That's the fire stain. All the surface scale has been cleaned away, but the stain inside the surface is still visible and not going anywhere without persuasion, no matter how much the students beg or plead with the teacher.

Fire Stain on Sterling Silver
Even more confusing, sometimes sterling will come out of the pickle looking matte white like fine silver, but with a slightly clouded blotchy mottling. This is from a process called depletion gilding. Repeated heating and pickling of your sterling strips away copper oxides (fire scale) and depletes the sterling at the surface of some of the copper content in the alloy. Eventually, the sterling will be go from black or copper stained with firescale to matte silver white. This thin fine silver layer, or loam, is a frail mask over the fire stain, which is still there, underneath. In fact, it is that scale that is making the matte silver color look blotchy and cloudy. As soon as any abrasive polishing is done, the fire stain is revealed and back with a vengeance. Incidentally, depletion gilding metal is used to coat everything from castings to tableware, covering incidental fire stain, and if burnished with tumbling, etc. can be polished as a bright, fine silver "plating" over sterling.

Okay, you can't understand pickle without talking about fire scale, but back to pickle.

Here are some of the usual questions (besides what is pickle, which we covered above):

1) What's the best pickle to use?
Well, if you're working at home or in a home studio or if you're concerned about eco-friendly chemicals, then I would suggest vinegar based or citric based pickles. Sounds yummy.

Back in olden times, the first pickle cleaning solutions were made with alum, as in what you use to make, well, pickles. After that, pickle solutions became more aggressive. 10% sulphuric acid and acid substitutes like sodium bisulphate (aka Sparex #2 brand pickle solution for non-ferrous metals like copper, sterling, brass, etc), are your typical studio or shop choice. They're effective, but testy. Acid solutions and Sparex don't like steel tweezers or any steel being put into the pickle pot - it reverses the flow and puts copper back onto your metal. So if you wanted pink, coppery colored sterling, you got it. Taking the steel out of the pickle stops the reaction. Sparex splashed on clothing and surfaces can put pin holes in clothing and bubble floor finishes. It's durable and long lasting, but it also has to be neutralized with baking soda before disposing of it (see disposal of pickle later on in this post).

Instead, you can use home friendly pickle solutions like citric acid or vinegar and salt. Citric acid is a baking product and you can buy it in bulk or you can buy brand name citric acid pickle solutions like Black Magic Biodegradable Pickle. The brand name solutions seem to work better than just using straight citric acid and come with mixing instructions, usually something like a heaping tablespoon or more per cup of water. It definitely takes more citric acid than Sparex to make the same volume of pickle. But, on the plus side, this stuff is all natural, doesn't mind steel at all (no adverse or copper pink reactions to steel) and no neutralizing required. I've stored citric pickle in the pot for more than a month with no mold, etc and I've had students report that they've stored it for a couple of years in a jug and it was still effective. Interesting fact: if you mix some brands of citric acid based pickle you get a strong vinegar vapor that gets worse when heated. We're talking coughing and abused nostrils like a mild tear gas. Not fun. So, don't mix brands. Dump the old solution (see below), clean the pot with soap and water and add the new mix.

Looking for citric acid at the grocery store? Well, look for drink mixes high in ascorbic acid, aka citric acid, like Crystal Lite drink mix. It's refreshing, lemony, and it will strip scale from sterling. Delicious! However, drink mixes are also near opaque and very "warm lemony" smelling, and not very effective, so this is not my preferred natural pickle mix.

Another natural mix is vinegar and salt, one teaspoon of salt per cup of vinegar. Heat it as usual in your clean pickle pot and you have your own homemade pickle. And a lot more home friendly than Sparex or diluted acid.

No pickle and no ingredients? Well, in a pinch you can use almost boiling hot water to remove the flux and even a lemon, sprinkled with a pinch of salt, rubbed over your metal will clean it (especially if you boil off the flux first).

2) Do I have to heat pickle? Can't I use it cold? 
Yes you have to heat pickle. Yes you can use it cold. Wait a minute. What?

Well, yes, pickle is more effective if you heat it up. Don't boil it, just use a crock pot or pickle pot, set on low, to warm the solution up until it steams. When it's hot, your pickle will strip off the flux in a couple of minutes and get to work on firescale soon after. In five - ten minutes it's probably ready for more soldering. Leave it in longer to clean off the most firescale possible.

In fact, and this is where using cold pickle comes into play. You can leave your metal in the pickle for hours, even overnight. Cold pickle takes time to work, but in the shop, we'd leave metal in the pickle overnight to soak, with the pot turned off for safety, and come back to nice clean bits to work on.

Whatever you do, citric or sparex, natural or toxic, don't use a microwave to reheat your pickle once it's been used and has started to absorb copper. Especially if you share that microwave with food. I don't want a burrito that tastes like pennies, no matter how interesting that sounds.

Besides crock pots, other pickle pot solutions include used, no longer for baby, bottle warmers or mug warmers. And remember, once you use a crock pot for jewelry, it's not for chocolate fondue or slow cooking anymore - unless you're trying to make yourself a "last supper" you'll never forget.

3) When is my pickle done and used up?
When it doesn't work anymore. Well, duh. But you can tell it's done when it turns bright blue from all the copper it has absorbed. As it gets more and more blue, pay attention to how long it takes to pickle your metal. As you get more experience with pickling, your "pickle senses" will tingle with impatience when it's taking too long for something to clean. That's a sign that it's done. Just don't mistake that deadline you procrastinated on and the rapidly approaching arrival of your customer with bad or defunct pickle. Also, if the pickle gets contaminated and your metal is coming out gooey or coated with annoying substances, it's time for a new batch.

4) How do I dispose of pickle?
For Sparex or dilute acid pickles, you have to neutralize your pickle before you can dispose of it. Time for fun with science!

To neutralize an acidic solution (pickle) you add a base (like baking soda). Before you dump some baking soda in your pickle pot, check this out: adding a base to acid increases the volume of material rapidly, like a volcano experiment gone wrong from science camp. So, cool off the pickle and dump it in a larger container, like a bucket. Add baking soda until it stops fizzing and foaming. Now it's done.

For citric acid or natural pickles, no neutralizing is necessary. Just let it cool and you're ready for disposal.

But before you dump any pickle solution down the drain - stop! Natural or neutralized, green or blue used pickle is full of copper and local cities often have rules about dumping copper into the water supply. They don't like it. You have to dispose of it properly, like taking it in a labeled container to your hazardous waste dump and turning it in. They may laugh at you, but in your heart and behind those tears you'll know that you did the right thing. The geeky thing, but the right thing.

5) When is my metal ready to remove from the pickle?
Students often ask when is my metal done pickling? The answer is the same as the one to the question, "when are the clothes done in the dryer?" When they're done. :^) 

For pickling, you're done when the metal is a clean as it can be. How long that takes depends on the strength of the solution, its age, its temperature, and how much scale and flux were on on your metal when you put it into the pickle. 

What you'll learn about as you pickle is what the different metals will look like when they're clean. In general, the first thing that will be removed will be the flux. So you won't see or feel any glassy flux on the metal. 

Next you're looking for signs of the scale disappearing. At first scale is dark, then pink and then hidden under a clean coat of metal on top. That's because scale comes from copper in the alloy. Heating metals alloyed with copper will bring the copper up to the surface. 

Here's a list of signs that the metal is done picking for a few alloys:

Sterling: will look a mottled matte white when finished

Copper: will look like a matte pink copper color (sometimes darker copper scale seem to be stubborn, but  will scale will come off with a little scrubbing)

Brass: will turn a mix of matte copper (scale) and brass color. Copper scale on brass has to be polished off. 

There you have it. If you want more, more, more information about the wonderful world of soldering, grab a copy of my books and/or dvds, Soldering Made Simple: Easy Techniques for Kitchen Table Jewelers, Soldering Beyond the Basics, or sign up for a class with us at the Silvera Jewelry School in Berkeley, CA.

Have some tips about pickle - the jewelry kind, not the edible kind? Then please share it here. And thanks!


53 comments:

Unknown said...

great article! thank you. So how about a tip on getting the copper off a goldfilled soldered ring. Super pickle (hydrogen peroxide) is a bad Idea because your solder will turn silver. What kind of polishing method is the best without grinding away too much of the metal?m I used a dremmel with a polishing tip and ZAM but the gold still looks a bit pink.

Joe Silvera said...

Hi - the best way to remove firescale from filled metals is to prevent it in the first place. Try using firescoff or Cupronil to eliminate or minimize any scale. By protecting the whole piece, the extra time spent fluxing will be recovered 10 fold in time saved during pickling and polishing.

Are you using low karat gold solder ( I use 10, 12 or 14 karat) or yellow tinted sterling solder for your gold filled? These can also help you avoid the dreaded solder line.

I don't know of any magic bullet for removing scale on filled metals other than polishing - always risky, but if you protect with scale retardant flux, avoid overheating, and use gold or tinted solder your gold-filled should be a lot more seamless looking and happy.

Happy soldering!

Woojoo said...

Ohmigaw! This is great! Exactly the info I needed. Thanks so much.

Unknown said...

Just set up a salt and vinegar pickle pot. It works very well, I am quite pleased. Thank you so much for the great info.

Jesse Oberes said...

Thanks so much for your article. It's very informative and I hope you don't mind me sharing a link to it from my website.

Unknown said...

I am manufacturer of small sculpture in India using the process vacuum investment casting Many times my metal % is 65 of silver and remaining copper After casting it is impossible to remove the fire scale in H2so4 pickling solution and many times heating them and using burnishing process it is also difficult to remove the fire scale and even it is economically costly process can anyone suggest me the right process for my job. I heard that theere is electro striping process if so what is the bath contained ? Prakash

Anonymous said...

This is quite impulsive post, I liked the way you write and explain all the things clearly. Thanks antique engagement rings

The Coffee Gypsy said...

This was awesome and oh so hilarious!!!!! Thank you so much

QoS said...

Can find citric acid in a well stocked spice section too: sour salt. I think - but am not sure - citric acid is also sold for canning.

Unknown said...

Great info & enjoyable read THANKS

Unknown said...

Thank you for your kindness in being willing to answer these question - so here's mine:

Is tarnish the same as fire-scale? My pickle is not removing tarnish from older pieces of silver that I made a while ago but had not completed. Now I want to work on them again and I thought if I put them in the pickle that would take it off. I


Also I am embarrassed to say I accidentally left my pickle on the other night with the lid off to boot! In the morning it was 3/4 evapoeated and I added more water to the crystallized pickle. Would that make it lose it's strength?

Unknown said...

Hi, I have a question.

RE: Removing silver foil from Moissanite "Sweet Pea Pink" stone

I want to remove color and foil from my ring!

It is set in a platinum coated silver setting. Can I pickle it off & which pickle is best. Heated?

Thanks,

Moe

Unknown said...

Really great post. This answered the majority of my questions. When I read this I actually opened up a word document and started taking notes haha.
Long island maids

Unknown said...

Interesting. This looks super cool. I haven't read it all yet, but I'll be back to read the rest of it.
Gleem

Unknown said...

I've heard that unless you neutralize your piece after it's been pickled, (in a baking soda and water solution) the pickle will continue to work on the piece, and wear away at it. True?

Unknown said...

Well, that was a pretty fascinating read, not going to lie. I really hope you continue to write. Probably one of the more informative pieces I've read on this subject. Thanks!
Wilmington Maids

Unknown said...

Can you put sterling silver into pickle after it has patina applied to it? I finished a ring (all except the stone) and then realized that part of it wasn't soldered down completely and now need to add solder, I just want to make sure it's ok to do that and there won't be any weird chemical reactions! I use Rio's Max Black oxidizer for patina (it contains hydrochloric acid) and Rio pickle

Unknown said...

this is so really nice . please check this .

Unknown said...

I left my pickling solution sit for many months and upon returning I found the bottom of the solution crystalized. Should I just reheat? Do I have to change it and use fresh pickle?

Janet Richmonds said...

Thanks for the great tips! We offer home cleaning services but often clean metal around people's homes, this will be very useful. Awesome to hear another use for the fantastic eco friendly cleaner vinegar too.

William said...

Excellent and helpful post… I am so glad to left comment on this. This has been a so interesting ..I appreciate your effort..now ascorbic acid powder

Unknown said...

Hello, I'm a sculptor who did lot of jewelry when i was in school in the 90s and since I've been fabricating and casting large objects. Until a few weeks ago when I decided jewelry would be a nice change of pace, but little did I know just how much you forget in 20 years. So I cast two silver rings and needed to pickle them. I bought Rio Pickle and mixed a new batch per the instructions and placed them in the warm sulfuric. When I saw they looked clean I took them out and rinsed in water. After they dried though I noticed that in the texture, undercuts and inside the cast bezel there is a whitish yellow chalky looking substance that is tough and im having to scrape it off with a file.

I know it's been a while, but pickle is simple and I don't remember that ever happening before.

Would one of you nice folks be able to tell me what I did wrong? And suggest the best way to remove it?

I followed the directions to the letter when I mixed the acid and the crock pot I use to heat it was new so it was clean.

Thanks folks
Jodie

Unknown said...

Your Article is really impressive.. I liked the way you write and explain all the things clearly. Very Helpful article
Window Cleaning Service

Anonymous said...

This article is not only helpful but fun to read. I am an avid fan of eco-friendly solutions for housekeeping and, I must say your eco-friendly suggestions on the first question hit the spot.


Spekless Home Cleaning

Rachetwench said...

So. I finished a beautiful cuff. Bracelet for my step mom and fell asleep (sitting up on the couch, tools in hand) after dropping it into the pickle to clean up. I got it out as soon as I remembered it today but discovered the finish is....ruined; red and angry and soft-ish. I don't have time or stock to replace it - is there anyway to restore the copper finish??

Penelope said...

Great article;fantastic knowledge and sense of humour, thanks for sharing both.

Amanda Thompson said...

Great article! You answered all of my questions about pickle in a way that was easy to understand as a new aspiring metalsmith.

Unknown said...

I've over pickled and my silver has gone dark grey. How do I remove this?

lisysomna said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
semonskorry said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Joe Silvera said...

Unknown re: I’ve over pickled and my stuff is all grey: That can happen if you leave your stuff in the pickle for a long time and/or if your pickle mix is too strong. When I’ve used too much Sparex mix, for example, it turns the metal grey. For me the easiest solution was to polish it. That removed the grey coating.

Joe Silvera said...

Okay, it’s been awhile on some of these comments, but I’ll reply here. If not for them anymore, then for future readers. If any! :^)

re: Small factory in India and 650 silver. Well, with that high of a copper content, you’re going to have some pink silver. I don’t have the info for you about electro-stripping, but that could work. You probably just have to polish it off. Hopefully it can be removed with mass finishing and abrasives in a tumbler.

Does pickle remove tarnish? No. Use tarnish remover. Never use pickle to clean finished jewelry. It can be bad for stones and will matte your finish, and not in a good way.

If your pickle evaporates away: if you still have water in there, add water to fill it back up. If you evaporated it down to bone dry, try adding boilling hot water to melt the crystals. Sometimes allowing your pickle to steam away to dry can ruin your crockpot or even worse - be a fire hazard. Be sure to shut it off when you’re done.

Removing color and foil? from a platinum coated silver ring with a moissanite stone: Well, I gotta say, I’m a bit lost on this one. I haven’t heard of color and foil on a ring, nor platinum plating. Rhodium plating yes. My gut says pickle will not help with any of that. If it’s just dirty, clean it with an ultrasonic or take it to a jeweler for cleaner.

Can you pickle a ring after adding patina? Will pickle harm patina? So, usually if you have to pickle it’s because you just soldered. Soldering will remove your patina and dull your finish. So in a sense, pickle is not a problem. It’s the soldering. Pickle by itself usually doesn’t remove much patina, but if it does, you can just reapply it. That’s an easy solution. :^)

Thanks everyone!

Re: Scutlptor from the 90s with chalky residue: Um, not that you have chalky residue, per se, but actually your jewelry. I’m sure you’re very clean. Anyway! Sounds like your pickle wasn’t completely rinsed off. When you take stuff out of the pickle, rinse it thoroughly in a bucket of water with tablespoon of baking soda added to it. The baking soda helps to neutralize the pickle. When the rinse water starts turning blue, dump it and make a new batch.

Re: fell asleep and now my cuff is pink: Okay, it sounds like the cuff was copper to start with? And the pickle changed the finish, probably making it matte and dull. Possibly angry, definitely melancholy. Whatever the metal, the solution is probably just to pull up your big jeweler pants and polish it again. Now, if you have really dark red scale, that’s fire scale and it means your pickle didn’t do squat. The pickle may have been cold, old or on vacation. You can either polish it off or mix a fresh batch of pickle and start again. And don’t forget to set a timer to wake you up when it’s time to check the pickle. :^)




Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Umer said...

but how to clean if u fond many types of valves of valves install in house

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Umer - Not sure I understand your question. This post is about cleaning metal during jewelry making. Feel free to post again if you still have a question. Best, Joe

Unknown said...

I'm uing a PH down pickle. I pickled a heavily fire scaled blank, and it turned yellow, like brass. I pickled several other copper blanks with it, and they all came out fine, any thoughts?

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Unknown "PH Down" - Was your blank made of a silver alloy? Let me know. I've had silver pieces turn yellow in the pickle pot because they got too hot and reached over 200°, sometimes by being in contact with the inside of the pickle pot. I keep my work in a separate plastic basket sieve most times now. Try turning down the heat. If it is a heat oxidizing that caused the yellow, you can remove it in a less hot batch of pickle, scrub it off with pumice, or polish it off. The yellow heat oxide might not show as clearly on your copper. Happy pickling! Joe

Unknown said...

PH Down is mostly Phosphoric acid, I will try the scrubbing, thank you!

Whyawannaknow said...

Mix your used pickle with baking soda until it quits foaming/releasing Carbon dioxide, you will end up with precipitated carbonates of any heavy metals. These carbonates are not very water soluble.

You can then dry out the metal containing sludge. If there was substantial Silver in the pickle, take it to a refiner and recycle. If not, mix the residue with cement powder and cast a chunk of concrete into a glass jar, making the metals relatively safe from leaching, then dispose of it in a landfill.

jackpoupart said...

I have taken a while to understand the ecological impact of metalworking and come to the conclusion that most large-scale industrial work with metal will always cause quite serious problems. In your own small scale workshop though, the very best thing I've found is distilled white vinegar and salt. If at a high temperature (70deg Celsius) it will dissolve your borax flux and of course take away your copper oxides when working with sterling. I know what you are thinking, there must be some downsides, right? Nope, maybe you have to wait a whole two minutes for your copper oxides to go, but if you don't have that much patience, then you probably won't like working with silver at all :) Vinegar is maybe 20p a bottle and salt may as well be free. Also because you are guaranteed to understand the chemistry, disposal is easy too. Add torn up aluminium foil to the solution so that the acetic acid (AKA 'vinegar') latches on to the aluminium instead of the copper. Instead of a green-blue Copper Acetate you will have a colourless solution of Aluminium Acetate which is nowhere near as bad. Just neutralise with baking soda afterwards and you will have have done a great service to the environment. You should of course still call your local authority and dispose of it correctly but you get to feel better doing it ;)

PS Joe Silvera! I have your book. Loving your work!

Unknown said...

Hi, I whant to keep the white surface in my pieces, I did it but it became grey very quickly.
What can I do to "protect' this suface white without bright?
I apreciate your answer very much !

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Unknown (Re: white surface finish): Thanks for your post. Sounds like you're trying to create a pickle white surface on your pieces but it's turning grey. The grey is probably tarnish. You can create a more tarnish resistant white surface with a technique called depletion gilding.

When silver alloys are pickled, the surface is depleted of copper and takes on a white finish. This surface is becoming more white as a layer of fine silver loam is formed. At first, the surface is mottled by the scale underneath the loam. If left like this, it still has enough scale to tarnish.

To get a more even, longer lasting white finish, you could continue depletion gilding the piece with repeated annealing and pickling. This works very well on sterling. Every time you anneal and pickle, more fine silver loam is formed, until it doesn't scale during annealing. It helps to brass brush the silver between after pickling. Be sure to use lots of water and some dish soap to lubricate the brush. After 5-7 rounds, on the last round of annealing and pickling, don't brass brush it if you want to leave it white.

Hope that helps with your project. Best! Joe Silvera

Unknown said...

I am new to using pickle solution and have a quick question, I made a vinager and salt pickle to clean a small chain I had soldered, I used a spoon to dip and then transfer it to a plastic container to neutralize it. The next day after I had removed the sopps washed it dried it and set it down my wife unknowingly threw it in the dishwasher...yes a major blunder, I was curious is there any contamination risk ie throw out all the dishes and start new or is this not that big of a deal. I was soldering sterling silver with silver solder paste on my piece. Any help or advise would be greatly appreciated

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Unknown with the Dishwasher -

I'm not a 100% clear, but it sounds like something went into the dishwasher that you're worried about - your pickle pot, the neutralizer container or the chain you soldered.

If it's the chain, I hope it survived a good wash and steaming.

If it was the pickle pot or neutralizer, it sounds like you cleaned it, but it ended up in the dishwasher by mistake. Vinegar and salt is biodegradable, and you if you used baking soda for the neutralizer, that's fine too. You can brush your teeth with baking soda.

Copper accumulates in pickle over time, turning it green and then blue. But if you only used it once or very little, and then cleaned it out, there's very little copper to be any problem, and it's not that toxic in small amounts anyway.

The solder paste burnt off the binder when you soldered, so no worries there. It doesn't contaminate the pickle or container.

So you're probably fine, not worried anymore, and washing your dishes in your dishwasher, and totally forgot about your post. Just keep using biodegradable pickle and try to remember not to leave your pickle pot too close to the dishwasher. ;^)

Unknown said...

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, no I didnt forget about the post and yes I have not used the dishwasher since, it was actually a silver plated spoon that was used to remove and place the chain in the pickle, it did begin to turn yellow and I think rust as it left in o overnight and developed a orange residue on it in the pickle. When I checked in the bottom of the dishwasher it left an orange residue, hence my panicked question, thank you again and awesome page!

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Unknown with the Silver Plated Spoon - All good then. The reason your plated spoon is changing color is probably because of the way steel reacts when put into a pickle bath. There are separate chemical pickles for ferrous and non-ferrous metals. If you are using vinegar based pickle to clean your metal, the steel in the spoon will cause a reaction. At the least, you'll get a discoloration, using copper colored, on the steel. Left in the pickle long enough, it will start to dissolve the steel. Use copper tongs to remove stuff fro the pickle.

Unknown said...

Hi i live in Sri Lanka can you please tell me if i can use apple cider vineger to make the pickle?

R.Soysa

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Unknown in Sri Lanka - I've never tried it with apple cider vinegar. Can you get regular vinegar, like white vinegar where you live? You can also use citric acid, which is used as a food preservative. Both can often be found at grocery stores or places that have supplies for canning food. Best, Joe

jackpoupart said...

The important chemical is the same in apple cider vinegar but it might not be quite as strong as distilled vinegar. I think it will work but again, it might take a little longer. :)

Unknown said...

Wow! That was a really detailed article. I have absolutely no experience or knowledge in this field but I've realized that vinegar, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide can be used to clean nearly anything. It's incredible the number of uses. Have you considered making an online course on this stuff? It certainly seems like you have the followers. Congratulations! I recently opened a house cleaning business and doing my best to learn all about cleaning. Thank you for taking the time to write this.

Unknown said...

Do you add the Citrus Acid powder to hot water or add it to cold and then turn on the pickle pot?

Joe Silvera said...

Hi Unknown - I do find that it mixes faster when you add the citric acid to hot water. Stir it while you add it. Hot from the tap works just fine. Best! Joe

Unknown said...

Nice
color metal