Rick, where do you get maltose from?
And what temperature do you run at for electrolysis, reduction, and this capping stuff?
Thanks.
-Sancho
I got it from the same place & at the same time that I got the 1/10 M HCl acid that I used for testing. It's called Carolina Biological Supply Co. (
www.Carolina.com)
I ordered over the phone because for both those items it was necessary for the person taking my order to get "special permission" or whatever. I can kind of understand that for the HCl acid but have no clue why that was necessary for the Maltose. It's "Lab Grade" Maltose Monohydrate. They recently sent me an 1100 page catalog that I better not look through because I'm sure there are hundreds of dollars worth of "stuff" in there that I would probably want.
My normal way of making 20 PPM colloidal silver for any sugar type reducer is to do the electrolysis @ just over 82*F (aprox 28* C) and then reduce it as soon as the electrolysis is finished. That way it's all reduced by the time it gets down to 75*F.
Before I started Gel-Capping at the end of the process I did not add any more heat at all. Doing it that way with Karo or Dextrose it always reduced fairly quickly for me (like 5 or 10 minutes). Maltose is different though. At those low temps it takes hours to fully reduce so I would put it in the warmest place in the house overnight & let it reduce slowly.
Now that I am Gel-Capping at the end it is necessary to get up close to boiling and then add the Gelatin. So I have started doing tests to see if I can just reduce it hot with Maltose and not loose any of the clarity. So far so good. Tried it with one batch so far. Split it in 2 and reduced 1/2 the normal overnight way with Maltose. The other half I added the Maltose & then got it up near boiling which reduced it quickly. Both seemed to be equal clarity but will have to do this a few times before I am sure. It looks like I will be able to just reduce it hot with the Maltose, wait a little to make sure all reduced & then get it even hotter to add the gelatin.
BTW: I am not claiming that this is the "best" procedure. There are many other choices as far as temp that people have done well with. For my setup I seem to get the best results (color & clarity) from doing the electrolysis cool (82*F).
Also BTW: Using Maltose is a trade off. I mentioned that it does turn out slightly darker than Karo or Dextrose reduced colloidal silver (all else being equal) so that indicates slightly larger avg particle size (a bad thing). I am willing to make this tradeoff to get the extra clarity but in reality I am splitting hairs and it could be argued that the trade off isn't worth it.
The more experiments I did the more I realized just how good Karo is as as reducer. When I was playing around with higher amounts of electrolyte, the Karo Reduced colloidal silver held up (stability wise) much better than either pure Dextrose or pure Fructose Reduced colloidal silver. Quite surprising since Karo is about 50-50 Dextrose & Fructose (with salt & Vanilla added). I figured that either Dextrose or Fructose would have to be superior to Karo but if they are, my experiments sure didn't find that to be the case. (Pure Dextrose powder will reduce a little more quickly than Karo if speed is the objective though.)
The only time Karo does not perform well is if your pH is too low (not enough electrolyte). Then Karo or Dextrose or Fructose will produce a dark cloudy turbid mess. Have never tried that with Maltose but my guess is that it would also turn out bad.