Baking soda gets most of the attention when household ingredients move from the kitchen cabinet to the cleaning bucket, but there is another baking staple that can be used when water has begun draining more slowly. Cream of tartar, the fine white powder better known for stabilizing egg whites and helping baked goods rise, can be added to a dry drain-cleaning mixture.
The method combines ½ cup baking soda, ½ cup salt, and ⅛ cup cream of tartar. Rather than using the entire batch at once, pour about half of the mixture into the slow drain, follow it with roughly 2 cups of hot water, and leave it for about an hour before flushing the drain with cool running water.
Cream of tartar is potassium bitartrate, an acidic compound left behind during winemaking. Its mild acidity is one reason it also turns up in household cleaning uses, though the mixture should be treated as an option for a sluggish drain rather than a way to dissolve every type of blockage.
What is slowing the drain matters. Soap residue and light buildup near the drain may respond to cleaning, while a bathroom drain packed with hair usually needs the debris pulled out with a drain snake. A kitchen pipe restricted by grease presents another problem, and a solid obstruction farther into the plumbing may require the trap to be removed or the line mechanically cleared.
That distinction also makes the cream-of-tartar mixture more useful as an early intervention. If water still moves through the pipe but takes longer than it used to, clearing accumulating residue may help before the drain reaches the point where water stops moving altogether.
There is one precaution worth taking before trying any pantry mixture. Don’t add it to a drain that already contains commercial drain cleaner, since combining household ingredients with chemical cleaners can create unsafe reactions. Hot water should also be used with some restraint around plumbing that may be sensitive to high temperatures.
If the drain remains slow after treatment, repeatedly adding more ingredients is unlikely to solve a physical obstruction. At that point, checking the stopper for trapped hair, using a drain snake, or cleaning the P-trap beneath a sink can address material that a poured mixture cannot reach or remove.
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