Is filtering absolutely necessary??/

IMO you should alwasy filter unless you are absolutley sure your powder is 100% pure and contaminant free. Why risk an infection when all you need to prevent it is a $5.00 syringe filter. Generally, you should let a solution site for about a week before using it. The BA should take care of any bacterial or viral contaminants in that amount of time. But the BA or Heat will not get rid of particulate matter, which could still cause an infection.

No it is not necessary to filter, but as Goanna stated, its only 5 dollars or so for a filter, so for 5 dollars you have piece of mind..... I don't always filter my batches, cause its time consuming and I don't always have filters on hand... I guess if you see visual particulate then I would filter.. As far as how long to wait after preparing your -home brew- I see no reason why you need to wait a week... If you follow through with a heat sterilization step, then you should be able to use immediately. I mean that's what that step is for..right ? This is the same for all powders. Hope this helps.

Yeah filtering is always nesscary if you ask me, I would.

ever see an abcess? here is a pic of one of our members after he had his surgically drained..... i would filter. 😉

IMO you should alwasy filter unless you are absolutley sure your powder is 100% pure and contaminant free. Why risk an infection when all you need to prevent it is a $5.00 syringe filter. Generally, you should let a solution site for about a week before using it. The BA should take care of any bacterial or viral contaminants in that amount of time. But the BA or Heat will not get rid of particulate matter, which could still cause an infection.

Pretty gross indeed makes you want to filter without a question of a doubt nice pic to show what can happen tho Kev.

I was thinking........Why not put the BA in AFTER baking, I mean people put the BA in and bake all the BA right out! Just wondering?I dont bake my stuff cuz I think most bake at to high a temp,Awhile back I was reading up on the temp it takes to degrade some of these hormones ,and its not to high If I remember correctly.Water boils at 212(I know people who bake go above 212),I know some lil nastys need a higher temp to kill them, but these hormones will degrade when exposed to high temps depending on the length of time exposed.I prefer cold chemical(ba) sterilization:)

the boiling point of BA is quite a bit higher than water or most hormones. your best shot at killing bacteria is heating then cooling then repeating. its rapid temp changes that kills bacteria not neccesarily high temps.

Yeti is right, even though BA is an alcohol, it has a higher boiling temp then water. Also, if you are baking it, you generally bake the vials with the caps and stoppers on, so if the BA did evaporate it would condense back into solution when it cooled, but that doesnt happen anyway, so their is no worry on that. I also beleive that sterilization at 250ºF is no risk to your hormones, but any higher and degredation may occur.

air oxygen is only problem for hormones, max sterilisation temperature should be higher than 140 C for most of them.

BA evaporates at 20 C so if you vent your vials while baking you will lose BA,its true it does have a high BOIL temp but a boil is not needed for evaporation,If you bake unvented, loss is not an issue but some do vent.

how would you bake unvented? i find this a very interesting topic actually and a very good 1 at that!

I always wondered the same thing if it was absolutely necessary if you bake it. Reason being because its such a pain in the ass to do without clogging. I even tried the larger .45 ones that were supposed to go smoother, but still clogged. I even filtered while the oil was still hot. Is there a trick to filtering that won't cause clogging? I see they have pre-filters now even. Is that the way to go to pre-filter it first? Maybe the new machine they have now to do it automatically. They looked nice for doing large quantities.

I have 100 grams to convert. I figure I'll need at least 12 syr. filters for it(1 for each 50ml). A little bit pricey at $5 a pop($60). I'm usually lucky if I can get 50ml out of one without it clogging. What's the general maximum amount that can be run through a filter? I wish there was an easy way to do it, and to save a little.