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DIY stop bath
I’m sorry guys. The perfect, universal, seekrit high-tech stop bath is a 2% solution of vinegar. Acetic acid. That’s it. That’s your fucking DIY recipie. Post over.
It needs to be pure acetic acid in water. None of that apple or wine vinegar, just white/distilled/spirit vinegar.
We’re using vinegar because this is a DIY thing and there’s no point in using anything more expensive or fancy, like citric / tartaric acid, and you can get it anywhere in the world at a grocery store.
The only problem with writing this post is the fact vinegar’s concentration is wildly different around the globe. We use 10% stuff but apparently in the US that’s washing-grade vinegar. I could just fire off several mixing instructions for various volumes and quantities but, well, fuck you. Do your own thinking.
There’s this wonderful honestly magic thing called a Pearson’s Square. Way of calculating how much of what to add together to get a desired final concentration. This pic explains it well enough I hope. We’ll go through one example just to be sure:
We have 10% vinegar and 0% distilled water. We want 1 liter of 2% stopper.
10% 2 (|0-2|) Vinegar
2%
0% 8(|10-2|) Distilled water.
So for 1l of stop bath we mix 2 parts 10% vinegar with 8 parts distilled water. Or, 2/10 (2+8) vinegar so 0,2 x 1000ml = 200ml vinegar and 8/10 (0,8 x 1000 = 800ml) distilled water. Will work with any units of quantity, volume, etc. If you’re still confused kill yourself or post your local vinegar concentration and I’ll do basic grade-school maths for you.
Honestly since we use tapwater for rinsing I make mine out of boiled water and vinegar, no need to waste distilled water on this. It’s a one-time-use solution. Keeps forever, obviously, nothing to spoil in there. Add stop bath, swish around a bit, pour out, rinse as usual. Braindead.
