Biokleen Bac Out cleaner

Opalchip should really learn some basic biochemistry before making his claims about a product called MoldZyme. If the ingredients are as he reports, and if the "fermented vegetable matter" in fact contains active enzymes after the fermentation process is complete, there will be little if any active enzyme present after the surfactant is added. Surfactants in significant concentration deactivate enzymes, and deactivated enzymes are useless. They do nothing to anything. Likewise, if Almandog is adding the "Biokleen Bac Out Cleaner" to his otherwise sensible witches' brew, all he is doing is destroying any enzymatic activity which might have originally been present in the product. It's the other ingredients that are doing the cleaning.

The only activity associated with some of these enzyme-based cleaners is in the bank accounts of the people who sell them to gullible audiophiles.

Maclogan,
You have to be right, after all you have a back ground in chemistry....

Giving some thought to your comment above including else where here on Audiogon relating to this subject.
The results using active enzyme base cleaners for vinyl, have to be imaginary.

Oh man....I feel SO embarrassed being suckered like this by Lloyd Walker.
It's too late for me to return the Prelude kit and Step 4 rinse for a full refund....

Well, live and learn.

Here is a formula that I can recommend and it is dirt cheap, easy to make and easy to remove.

900ml distilled water
89 ml of Isopropyl alcohol
1 or 2 ml of Triton X-100

I got the X-100 from Thechemistrystore.com, like $10/qt.

To rinse I can recommend this mixture

990 ml distilled water
10 ml isopropyl alcohol

The problem with all the "witch's brews" is the added ingredients in home cleaning products, like colorings or fragrances etc. and just not knowing what you are working with.

Hope this helps.

Ken

Someone above here doesn't really know his MacStuff or bother to research it. First off - Nonionic surfactants (which is the ONLY type in MoldZyme) absolutely DO NOT degrade enzymes. Do some research and get back to us. I can cite at least 10 studies that show, in fact, the BENEFICIAL effect of nonionic surfactants on enzymatic action. Here's a start:

http://books.google.com/books?id=SCWLcVDjxxsC&pg=PA643&dq=effect+of+surfactants+on+enzymes+%22nonionic+surfactants%22#PPA715,M1

http://www.ejbiotechnology.info/content/vol9/issue5/full/16/index.html

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/107623197/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

http://jds.fass.org/cgi/reprint/83/3/536.pdf

http://aem.asm.org/cgi/reprint/17/2/242.pdf

2nd - It just plain works. I'm not influenced by Audiophile voodoo (and this is not marketed to audiophiles). I have experimented with many things, and this is the best I've found that is easily store bought. Ken's homebrew is also excellent (although I personally would up the Triton to around 3 or 4 ml) and because X-100 is nonionic it would also be improved with the addition of a protease/lipase mixture.

Moldzyme BTW has no added colors, fragrances, etc.

In response to Opalchip - indeed I am aware of the difference between ionic and non-ionic detergents, and indeed I have done the research, but in laboratories rather than by Googling elementary textbooks. I am also aware of the effect of cmc on the behaviour of enzymes in the presence of neutral surfactants, which seems to have eluded the author(s) of your books. I am not aware of the type of surfactant present in MoldZyme - I hope it is neutral since ionic surfactants have no place in LP cleaning in my view. There are some popular proprietary cleaners which break this rule, so nothing would surprise me.

Neither you nor your books address the crucial question however. How do enzymatic cleaners remove non-biological crud?