Murphy's Cleaner-Steriliser and AntiformS vs Percarbonate

[Kev888]

I currently use a sodium percarbonate based cleaner for soak-cleaning kegs and tanks and recirculating through pumps and the plate chiller.

However, I've noticed people starting to use Murphy's alkaline Cleaner Steriliser so i'm tempted to try that, and whilst on their site I notice they also do Antiform-S which I hear very good things about too.

Chemistry is not my strong point though; Could anyone give me practical thoughts on what uses/situations the Cleaner-Steriliser and/or the Antiform-S may be better or worse choices for than my percarbonate based stuff?

Cheers,
Kev

[gnutz2]

I on the market for a good cleaner too, is there anything wrong with using caustic soda crystals on a plastic vessel??

[Kev888]

I don't think theres a problem with soda crystals (the green bags from the supermarket) - I've used these quite a bit in the past with no issues, but don't let things soak more than say overnight or you can get stuff deposited on the plastic. I've also used caustic soda a few times (drain cleaner), but its nasty stuff so its not a regular one for me. I have found that PBW is a rather better cleaner than soda crystals though, and hopefully the murphy's cleaner will be too.

If its of interest, I actually make my own version of PBW these days, with mixing 2x sodium percarbonate to 1x sodium metasilicate and thats very effective, but suffers the same deposits issue as soda crystals if you leave it too long - I think true PBW is more sophisticated and avoids that. I was getting small quantities of the percarbonate from B&Q as ecover laundry bleach and the metasilicate off ebay, but then my local B&Q stopped stocking it so i got it all off ebay in bulk - you have to get large quantities to make it much cheaper than bigger packs of PBW; IIRC I got mine in 20kg sacks and keep it somewhere very dry in clamp top barrels. Its a faff and expensive up-front in those quantities, but my FV is 150L and I've no CIP system so I fill it each time - the home made approach saves me quite a bit of cash in the long run.

Cheers
Kev