isopropyl will evaporate without leaving much of any residue.
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I place the chain in the strainer of an old salad spinner and keep the matching bowl underneath while pouring from the kettle.
Afterwards, I filter the wax water through a coffee filter, or just leave the bowl to let the water evaporate.
Wow how intense is this feed. I love it!
For what it’s worth, i ride stupidly dusty gravel around 300km a week. Two years ago i switched to immersion waxing and since then i am on the same two chains i started with and measured on the LL gauge they are still around .25 wear. I got a $1 saucepan at a thrift shop which i use to put the chain in and pour several rounds of boiling water on my chain to melt wax and flush grit. When the water is clean after a rinse usually after about 4 rinses and 750ml of water straight into the wax pot @95C. Any water in the chain boils away in about 5 mins and after a few swishes into second pot with endurance chip. Pull at 95C and then ive git about 300km of super sweet waxilicious gravel riding before i need to do it again. Yes i reuse links and have decided to change them every spring on all my bikes. If you lube the links with drip wax they snap shut nice and tight even after 20 or 30 uses.
Mr @Dave_Rome and co have been super diligent with their attention to this subject and having wrenched for a pro tour team i agree that cycling is a maintenance based sport where equipment is the difference between enjoyment and injury. There are no shortcuts. Maintaining your equipment is part of the equation. We are in a golden age of maintenance and when i look back to the chemicals and filth i have been exposed to in the last 40years, whipping the chain off to clean it is an absolute joy.
Enjoy the clean people and find you waxy joy.
Love the passion!
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I like west coast hahahahahah
I’m currently on drip-wax only (no pot - yet….) and have tried the kettle method but given up. It’s expensive but I am having good results with a combination of Silca chain prep followed by hot soapy water, then a thorough rinse with the hose. It gets more of the grey gunk off from the rollers than boiling water alone, and is a lot less risky in terms of burning your legs/ other body parts.
Why do you use soapy water after using the Silca chain prep? I’d think you’d lose the benefits of the chain prep by washing it off. But regardless, I feel like you’re losing out on one of the biggest benefits of waxing, which is you don’t need to do any of this stuff. The gray gunk coming off the rollers is probably just the wax.
Hot soapy water seems to help shift some of the road grime, next time I will try just Silca chain prep and a water rinse (as per Silca instructions) and see how I go. I ride in all conditions on some pretty grimy roads in winter, so I’ve got to clean the chain somehow.
Moving house soon and planning to get a Crockpot setup which will make a lot of these issues go away.