Oven Drying Cartos

[profection]

The yucky taste comes from water that is still in the carto is you leave it to dry on it's own for a few days. Imagine leaving a glass of water on the table for a few days, and then taking a drink out of it.

Tap water contains a lot of minerals that will be left behind with evaporative drying (oven, dehydrator, bag of rice). You can alleviate this by doing a quick rinse with distilled water after you've washed your cartos.

The concept of the oven method is that it should be hot enough to turn the water into steam, but not so hot as to destroy the materials the carto is made of. 220 degrees should be perfect, since 212 is the boiling point of water.

Ideally, a convection oven would work best, since the moving air would move the steam away from the innards of the carto once the water has turned to vapor.

I have had good luck soaking in vodka/grain alcohol for a few hours, drain. Boiling in distilled water for 15 min, drain. Re-boil in distilled water for another 15. Cook at around 220 degrees for about 1 1/2 hours and then just leave them in the hot oven overnight. Seems to work for me.

 

[keelalagirl55]

Katz....there are several threads in the Tips and Tricks area of ECF that I have come across....one was quite funny......someone actually tied a bag of cartos to their ceiling fan

 

[RippleInStillWater]

Hasn't it been suggested to try a container with rice? I remember that suggestion long ago; also those stupid granule things that come with gym shoes that keep them dry......

I cooked my fillers once heating in the oven too long, another time too high.

 

[Dana A]

I did a batch 2 nights ago with the turkey baster and boiling water (saw it on you tube) and tonight they are like brand new. I have a second batch in the oven this time to dry on 200 degrees and will leave em in for a few hrs. I hope they work as good as the last batch that I air dried for 2 days.

 

[katz-in-boots]

Hi Dana A, good that you have found a method that works for you. I gave up on the oven drying and used a TeamKr808,com Cartodryer - worked for me where oven drying wouldn't.
Now I'm using tanks, so it isn't much of an issue for me these days.

 

[blight231]

Alot of bad luck with oven drying, suprising. I run water through them at first to get most of it out and then I let them soak in rubbing alcohol overnight ( it will also seperate the water ) the rubbing alcohol naturally dries extremely fast . So I let them sit overnight and then I put them in the oven on a cookie sheet at 200 for about 10 minutes ( they will sizzle a bit ) and then I tune it down to 175 ( it says " WARM " on my oven ). I just lay them down on their side , sometimes you will get some discoleration on the cart but 9/10 of the carts will work fine. I clean about 50 carts at a time this way.
I have not tried the " Cartodryer " but it looks interesting. Way too expensive for such a remedial task though. I would be interested to see how it works. There is no way the cart could get bone dry. In short the oven method works for me

 

[Dana A]

Ok I have filled and used 6 of the ones 8 I dried in the oven and they are like new. If anyone wants to try this I put them in the baster mouth side up. Then soak up some boiling water to fill the baster. I use a glass under the mouth of the baster to transport back to the sink so I don't drip boiling water on my feet and squeeze the water slowly threw the carto. Reapete 5 times and then hold the seal of the baster bulb so no air can get out and squeeze air threw the cart hard and fast 10 times to blow out as much water as possible. Then I baked em for 2 hours on 200 degrees and left them on the counter till morning. I filled em up and voila... Like new.

 

[Dana A]

Hi Dana A, good that you have found a method that works for you. I gave up on the oven drying and used a TeamKr808,com Cartodryer - worked for me where oven drying wouldn't.
Now I'm using tanks, so it isn't much of an issue for me these days.

Katz I saw that thing on you tube but don't wanna pay for it. LOL

 

[katz-in-boots]

Yep, we all have to find what works best for us