How long do you bake your baking soda for?

[Delphinus]

No clumping at all? Wow, I wonder what I was doing differently. It sounds exactly the same as what I would do: I would take the 2 cups needed for 1 gallon and bake it on a cookie tray about 1cm/0.5" thick. I grew so frustrated with the clumping I clean gave up doing it that way. Soda ash is easy enough to source nowadays (BRS/Eli/Concept/etc/eieio) that I don't really plan to go back to doing it that way but a part of me always wondered why it would be such a problem for me and not for others..

[asylumdown]

I found the few times that I did it that it would practically solidify on the baking sheet, and the larger chunks didn't dissolve nearly as easily. Is that what you mean by clumping? It was like you would almost need to put it through a blender to get it back in to a fine powder that dissolved quickly. I was never sure if soda ash just has a lower solubility, or if it was the fact that I was trying to dissolve larger pieces (I'm sure I could have looked it up, but meh), but it was annoying enough that I stopped doing it and just stuck with regular old baking soda for my alk

[swill]

Thanks everyone, I baked a whole box on a cookie sheet for a hour on 400F. I didn't get any clumping this morning.

[reefme]

At 350 for 3 hours.

[Skimmerking]

Originally Posted by swill

Thanks everyone, I baked a whole box on a cookie sheet for a hour on 400F. I didn't get any clumping this morning.

so a whole box of baking soda will last how long

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I found the few times that I did it that it would practically solidify on the baking sheet, and the larger chunks didn't dissolve nearly as easily. Is that what you mean by clumping? It was like you would almost need to put it through a blender to get it back in to a fine powder that dissolved quickly. I was never sure if soda ash just has a lower solubility, or if it was the fact that I was trying to dissolve larger pieces (I'm sure I could have looked it up, but meh), but it was annoying enough that I stopped doing it and just stuck with regular old baking soda for my alk

That's exactly what would happen to me, except it would happen after I added it to water. I tried adding it to warm water, I even tried adding it to water heated up to a boil to see if it would be less of a problem, and it was not as bad, but it still happened. It would solidify into a rock hard consistency and the only way to break it up would be to use a blender. Eventually my wife banned me from using her blender

I'm totally happy with the soda ash from Eli so have no plans to change back to baking soda, but I am just still totally stumped that some people seem to have no problems whereas for me it was basically ridiculous.. There must be something to attribute this to!!

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

That's exactly what would happen to me, except it would happen after I added it to water. I tried adding it to warm water, I even tried adding it to water heated up to a boil to see if it would be less of a problem, and it was not as bad, but it still happened. It would solidify into a rock hard consistency and the only way to break it up would be to use a blender. Eventually my wife banned me from using her blender

I'm totally happy with the soda ash from Eli so have no plans to change back to baking soda, but I am just still totally stumped that some people seem to have no problems whereas for me it was basically ridiculous.. There must be something to attribute this to!!

Maybe it's a Calgary thing? I know that sounds ridiculous, but perhaps something about our elevation/humidity?

[Cal_stir]

300 degrees for 1 hour, then I heat my RODI water in atomic oven and it dissolves completely and quickly