sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) vs sodium carbonate (soda ash)

[Delphinus]

I thought soda ash affected the pH less so I always chose to go with that when possible but I usually just made my own by putting baking soda in the oven for an hour at 350 as per Randy Holme-Farley's articles. However I found that when I did so I would invariably get chunks of baked baking soda which would really resist dissolving, without a lot of mixing or by preboiling the RO/DI I was mixing it into. It was a messy and time consuming process which I didn't really enjoy.

I'm using BRS soda ash now and man that stuff mixes nice. No comparison, totally full of win.

I never wanted to use actual "washing soda" (which is supposed to be soda ash), or I should say, I wanted to because it's easily accessible but I never did ever actually USE any because everytime I would buy some it would have this distinctly lemon scent to it. I am convinced that they are adding some kind of perfume to it but they don't list ingredients so I think it's too risky. I googled this several times over the years and each time could not find satisfactory answers, Randy Holmes-Farley just goes so far as to say that it does appear that it is perfumed in Canada but not in the U.S.

The BRS stuff is a total win. Only thing is the shipping costs are high if you buy a lot so it dampens the enthusiasm somewhat. However I'm still hoping to try Eli's stuff that he's brought in for the next round.

Anyhow: soda ash for the pH reasons, and BRS soda ash over baked baking soda for the ease of mixing.

HTH