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Why use glass jar when adding lye? Why not stainless steel pot?l

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babagmn

Rising Star
Since adding the lye produces heat and could break the glass jar' is there a reason not to do this reaction in a stainless steel pot that could be put in a water bath to take away the heat generated?

Let me know if I am missing something here.

Thanks.
 
One reason is because you'll likely be performing your pulls from the glass jar, not a wide pot.

Another reason is that heating lye without a lid can be somewhat harmful (have you mixed lye with cold water and noticed the burn on your nose?). Using a lid can be helpful, but you want to make sure too much pressure doesn't build up.

For this last one I'll need @Transform to weigh in, but there could be some unwanted chemical reactions with something heavily basic.

Glass is usually safer with a lot of these processes.

One love
 
Voidmatrix said:
One reason is because you'll likely be performing your pulls from the glass jar, not a wide pot.

Another reason is that heating lye without a lid can be somewhat harmful (have you mixed lye with cold water and noticed the burn on your nose?). Using a lid can be helpful, but you want to make sure too much pressure doesn't build up.

For this last one I'll need @Transform to weigh in, but there could be some unwanted chemical reactions with something heavily basic.

Glass is usually safer with a lot of these processes.

One love
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In my view, (soda) glass is more likely to react with lye than stainless steel. Also, I'm pretty sure most of my stainless steel pans came provided with lids :p . The main advantage of glass is that it is transparent, so you can see the boundary between the naphtha and the base soup more easily, but even that is not a crucial point.

Many moons ago, just for fun, I've added sodium hydroxide prills to boiling water in a borosilicate glass jug and it was absolutely fine (since it was genuine, old school Pyrex). This was when I was young(er) and (more) reckless and I would advise everyone not to do this since there's a fair chance YOU won't be fine at all.

Anyhow, it wasn't just for fun since I figured that really hot lye would break down plant material super quick. I was right and the yield turned out very respectably with several naphtha pulls in rapid succession. I tend not to mention this simply because boiling hot lye is incredibly dangerous if anything goes wrong.

One more thing with lye and stainless steel is that you'd best make sure the steel is scrupulously clean before use. Metal items often have traces of greasy or oily residue and metal powder left over from their manufacture. Used metal cookware will often have traces of food seared onto it which is harder to see than in the case of glass items.
 
Thanks for these replies. Seems to make sense now.


I have never do e any of this so is all new to me.

Regarding the pull with naphtha and being able to see the layers, I thought that that stage could certainly be done in a glass jar . It was the lye adding ztthat I thought could be done in a stainless steel container, to help dissipate the heat generated from adding lye to the acidic solution. Once all the lye has been added and the mixture cooled down it can then be poured into a glass container with a lid and then that would be used for the naphta pull.

Ii have some large jars which can take being heated in a pressure cooker but I have never used them in This manner.

I just want to make sure that there is no reaction between the lye and the stainless less steel.
Many thanks
 
I Have some large mouthed Jr's that are similar to the us style mason jars. Also heat resistant but the lids are not the same as mason jars.

Ok, so I could put the jar in a water bath to keep the temp down. Thanks
 
babagmn said:
I Have some large mouthed Jr's that are similar to the us style mason jars. Also heat resistant but the lids are not the same as mason jars.

Ok, so I could put the jar in a water bath to keep the temp down. Thanks
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I dissolve in a glass cafetière (glasses on), with the plunger removed, in a pan of cold water in the sink. Add the lye little by little, swirling carefully but fairly vigorously. A large pan makes this easy to perform submerged. Any accidental splashes and you're literally over the tap. Did I mention glasses on?
 
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