Buzz
Once upon a time, I worked as a lab technician in a chemistry lab, where I applied only a tiny fraction of the knowledge I’d spent four years acquiring in my chemistry studies. Though I left the industry more than ten years ago, some habits, especially when it comes to glassware, have stayed with me.
I have a special fondness for chemical glassware. I even have a (less-than-perfect) Erlenmeyer flask tattooed on my lower back, and I’m drawn to kitchen tools that resemble laboratory equipment. Back in school, I didn’t mind washing dishes—specifically, cleaning the beakers, round-bottom flasks, and yes, the Erlenmeyers, from both organic and inorganic substances clinging to their surfaces. After soaking them in an acid bath followed by a neutralizing rinse in a base bath, I would rinse each item three times to eliminate the last trace of residue.
The triple rinse wasn’t a quirk of mine but a standard practice for everyone, something I was taught by my fellow undergrad, Trevor, during my first exposure to lab dishwashing. 'Each rinse takes away 90% of the residue,' he told me. 'By the third rinse, you’ve removed 99.9%.' That explanation stuck with me, and to this day, I find myself rinsing items—especially dusty glasses—three times.
To verify Trevor's advice from 13 years ago and indulge in some nerdy curiosity, I visited the Alconox website to check if they had similar recommendations. (Alconox produces industrial cleaning products, similar to, if not the same as, those we used in my undergraduate chemistry lab.) I wasn’t let down:
There are several college and university cleaning protocols for glassware that recommend triple rinsing. We also find historical records from early users of detergents for laboratory glassware cleaning, published by glassware manufacturers, that suggest the same. The rationale for triple rinsing is that by filling and emptying a vessel three times with water, the concentration of any residue is reduced by two orders of magnitude each time. In theory, each rinse leaves behind just 1% of the previous substance, leading to a 1:100 dilution with fresh water at every rinse. After three rinses, this results in a 6-log reduction of any water-soluble residues in the wash solution.
Is this overboard when it comes to cleaning your kitchen glassware? Absolutely. It’s unlikely you’re handling chemicals that leave behind dangerous residues. However, there are instances when a triple rinse feels justifiable, like when cleaning a wine or beer glass. In fact, beer enthusiasts take glass cleanliness just as seriously as chemists do. 'Beer clean' is a whole concept—referring to dust-free, residue-free glassware that ensures you enjoy the full experience of your beer. According to CraftBeer.com:
A beer clean glass is completely free of any contaminants: leftover sanitizer, beer residue, dirt, food, detergent, grease, chapstick, lipstick, lip balm, boogers, or anything else that could provide the escaping CO2 a place to cling to. These impurities act as nucleation sites, where bubbles can accumulate. Any time you serve beer in a glass that isn’t clean, the hidden residues will become visible to you (or your customers) on what appears to be a clean glass.
...According to the Brewers Association’s
Draught Beer Quality Manual
(DBQM), a 'beer clean' glass is one that 'forms a proper foam head, allows for lacing during consumption, and never shows bubbles stuck to the side of the glass when the beer is poured.'
Bubbles sticking to the inside of a beer glass is the clearest indication that the glass isn’t 'beer clean.' Whatever is causing those nucleation sites, I don’t want to be sipping it, and I’m sure you don’t either.
To get glasses 'beer clean' (or wine clean, if you prefer wine), wash them separately from other dishes, let them air dry to avoid any lint or fibers sticking to them, and give them a quick rinse before filling with beer (or wine). How many times you rinse is up to you, but I always go for three rinses to eliminate as many potential nucleation sites as possible (or at least 99.9% of them).
