I don’t wish this site to become anything like the blog of the many domestic goddesses out in the wide wide world of web who proffer household tips to the less talented from the cosy corner of their spotless kitchens (bitches). So my rather crap recipe for brown balls of a couple of days ago should be enough from me on this sort of subject for a while. But as I have maybe encouraged one or two of you to buy a Hurom juicer; you may like to know how to clean it.
If you are like me, you give your juicer a good rinse after every juicing session, and you attack the screen with the supplied brush until it is spotless. Well done. But after some use you may discover that the soft orange plastic pieces are developing mould, particularly the underside of the plug for the outlet spout, and the wiper blades that rotate around the screen (have you ever taken them out to see what they are up to? Developing mould is what).
After three months or so, mine were looking decidedly mouldy and unpleasant. Now, I don’t really mind, I feel a healthy dose of mould and bacteria can’t do you much harm; but she who must be obeyed would quarantine the entire apparatus if she spotted the growth; so I had to do something about it.
I had soaked the parts in vinegar a few weeks ago with no obvious improvement; but I tried it again for a longer period this morning. Still black and horrid.
Consultations with Mr. Google had confirmed that bleach might do the job; but not so much on porous surfaces, and bleach is not the most pleasant thing to discover traces of when you next juice an orange.
Hydrogen Peroxide was next up. This is good stuff; 30 baht will buy you a bottle of 3% dilution which will clean wounds, sterilise vegetables and sanitise work surfaces. If you can find a bottle of 90% solution you can use it as rocket fuel; but I don’t think Boots sell that. Along with Hydrogen Peroxide was the recommendation to use Soda Ash, which is used to maintain swimming pools and is also used to develop films along with instant coffee, so I just happened to have a tub in the cupboard which most definitely had not been stolen from our pool room.
I mixed them together and was delighted to find that the bowl containing the mixture became slightly warm. No doubt ChristianPFC will be along in a minute to explain the chemical reaction; but it is my belief that if two or more substances mixed together create heat; then they will probably have a good chance at destroying mould. However, if they get really hot and explode, they have a really good chance of destroying a newly wallpapered wall in my Grandfather’s house when I was eight.
Sadly, even the warm mixture made no difference and after a couple of hours that went down the drain to challenge the condo’s water treatment plant which is probably still reeling from the developing fluid I offered it the other evening.
The other substance on Mr. Google’s list of recommendations was baking soda. I had some of that too, useful in bread making (is there no end to my talents?). So I mixed Hydrogen Peroxide and baking soda, noticed the complete lack of resulting warmth, and went off to the internet while the parts had a final, fruitless soak.
I found a company in the UK that sold spares and decided I better get some new plastic parts which I would then ensure were kept mould free. I had all of ten pounds worth of bits in my virtual shopping basket when everything came to a halt, because the web design of the site had a problem with the drop down list of countries for shipping. It started to work through the alphabet but then stopped when it arrived at Bhutan. I dropped them a mail suggesting that I could fly to Bhutan and pick up the bits, but visas were a problem so if they wouldn’t mind fixing their site?
A very nice chap replied and said he would “add Thailand” which rather missed the point; but by then the issue was moot; because my orange plastic bits were sparkling like new with no hint of mould!
So, here is the Pattaya Days domestic god tip for today: If you need to clean mould from your Hurom juicer, mix Hydrogen Peroxide and baking soda in a 50/50 mixture and soak the parts for a couple of hours. Afterwards, you can use the mixture to shampoo the cats; at least I think you can, I am off to give it a go.
Comments 🔗
2013-07-12| The Heavyweight saysA lovely poem, you are a man of many talents; and also some strange similarities in names jump to mind: Mr. Domestic (Bombastic?), Mr. Tennison (Mr. T?) :-) strange…
But you are also a man of surprises - considering the D600 you once found too bulky to be fun is a nifty dwarf as compared to the Yashica - not to mention the processing and scanning ;-)
I would love to scan some of my old colour slides. Maybe when I retire and live in Thailand…
2013-07-12| Spike saysThat’s Tennyson with a “y”, as in Sir Alfred Lord T; surely one of my biological and spiritual ancestors?
Well, it’s like saying you drive a BMW M3 (or in your case a Mercedes taxi), but have no interest in playing with a traction engine. One may be slow and cumbersome; but its an interesting and rewarding transport experience just the same.
Come to think of it; it’s nothing like that at all; and anyway the Yashica is still lighter than your brick with a lens on it.
2013-07-12| The Heavyweight saysPlease accept my apologies for vandalizing the honourable name Tennyson, it will not happen again.
That said, indeed I wonder why FF lenses are so big and heavy. The Yashica needs to shed light on a much larger (film)surface than any digital FF camera, but its lenses are tiny in comparison to modern FF lenses. Or my old SLR lenses were all much smaller than current lenses too. AAMOF, Nikon has a really nice 50mm f1.8 which is tiny, makes the D800 almost fit into my pant’s pockets (ok, that is exaggerated :-) )
But then again, when a lens is not bulky and heavy, there are probably immediately thousands of people on the Internet near a heart attack, hysterically gasping about the lenses ‘cheap build’…
A crazy world. If my camera would be half the size it actually is, I’d like it twice as much. A sudden thought flashes through the head regarding the correlation between sizes and attractivity WRT another aspect of life, but to say that aloud would be very politically incorrect, so I will refrain from even making an innuendo as to that issue.
If/when you have a scanning setup which gives you results you are happy with, could you maybe describe it, too? Would be interesting for the colour slides of half a lifetime for me…
2013-07-12| Bob James saysWhile I’m still mulling the juicer, it’s good to get the cleaning tips in advance. However, I’m confused about the recipe:
baking soda is a powder hydrogen peroxide is a liquid
How can you have a 50/50 mix of the two? Just how much soda did you add to the peroxide?
2013-07-12| Clive saysJust curious… One solution I have used with other challenges like this is Milton fluid - the stuff used to sterilise baby bottles and the like. Wondered if you had tried that?
2013-07-13| Spike saysI appreciate that things are a little behind out there in the colonies, but here in the civilised (n0 “z” please) world they have developed a device for the “equal measurement of substances in dual states of matter”. There are three sizes available, the smallest of which is known as “a spoon”. For larger quantities they also sell “a cup”, and if you need to go large they offer “a bucket”. Of course, when I wrote 50/50 I meant approximately equal, or anything up to 70/30 either way because I expect it doesn’t make a lot of difference.
2013-07-13| Spike saysBabies, and all accompanying paraphernalia, are strictly banned from my condo. You would need buckets (see previous comment for description) of Milton to clean up after the little buggers, and that is before you could make a start on mould.
2013-07-13| Spike saysYou are right. You only have to look at a Leica or a Sony RX1 to see how small full frame can be. The Yashica has the advantage of having a large gap between the lens and the film, presumably facilitating a larger image; but even so, the lenses are tiny.
As for the scanning, you can be assured I will be boring you senseless with my experiences; although whether medium format, black and white scanning solutions will apply to 35mm slides….
2013-07-13| Kevin Moore saysMy better half has just suggested steridant tablets, not sure if the spelling is correct but they’re the tablets used for soaking false teeth in. My better half who by the way, is a long way off using such tablets for their intended purpose informs me that her parents used to use them for cleaning kettles in the B&B they used to run. By all accounts the kettles were fully de scaled and shone like new following the treatment.
2013-07-14| Pete saysMy dad used to use those for his falsies - the spelling is ‘Steradent’
2013-07-19| ChristianPFC saysHydrogen peroxide decomposes in acidic or basic (alkaline) medium, evolving heat and bubbles of gas should appear.
I wonder if they meant to use either soda ash or hydrogen peroxide, and not mixing them together.
Bleach sounds promising to me, you just have to wash thoroughly afterwards (the active ingredient decomposes to cooking salt and oxygen anyway if you leave it for a while in the heat).
Are these plastic bits made of silicone and can you remove them? We had a green film of mould inside silicone tubings used for cooling water (in my university in England), you just had to squeeze them to loosen the mould from the wall, then it simply flushed away.
Alas, this is where Murphy’s law comes into play: stains that can be removed by a wipe with a piece of cotton wool are at places where you can’t access them.
Recently I came across mould in a steam room in a sauna in Bangkok. All walls had a slimey touch below a level of about 1 m, it was dark, so I could just feel, but not see.