I understand most of the commercial detergents use TSP (trisodium phosphate) as a key ingredient.

So, my question is: In a pinch, is it OK to backflush with TSP? Is it safe? Is it effective? In other words, if you had TSP on hand (but no detergent), and you needed to backflush immediately for whatever hypothetical reason, would it work (remove oils, gunk etc)? and would it be safe, providing one flushed sufficiently afterwards?

I've found some suggestion here and there that it's OK, but nothing definitive in terms of real consensus or an official source.

Thanks!
-dan

As far as I know it's fine. The regular back flush detergent is mostly TSP, and it's soluble, so will rinse out afterwards. I think the espresso machine stuff has a little foaming additive to make it more dramatic.

So far as I know, it should be safe. But the commercial products also contain a lot of enzymes to improve the cleaning. My understanding is that they're sort of like amped-up dishwasher detergent.

Best,
David

just to clarify (since someone was actually kind enough to email me an offer that i could stop by and pick up some detergent from him locally here in chicago)... this is only a hypothetical question... i DO have cafiza on hand, and backflush with it regularly... i was kind of just curious, having read some talk about it from various sources... a couple people seemed to think it wasn't a good idea, while most are saying it should be fine.

i think the consensus seems to be it's ok but maybe not quite as effective.

Having a B.S. in chemistry 42 years ago and not working in that field, I think its ok. However,TSP is sort of an environmental nono and most "TSP" I have searched for locally contains some unlabeled chemical in its place. Whatever it contains probably isn't safe to ingest.

Marvin

I have yet to see any backflush detergent that was safe to ingest. You have to flush well after the detergent. You would also want to pull a garbage shot to make sure everything is cleaned out and re-season the group.