Koch-Chemie Ultra Foam "Uf" Snow Foam / High-foaming foam for the self-service wash 1000ml

Snow Foam at pH 8.5 as the sweet-spot between gentleness and cleaning power

What is the Koch-Chemie Ultra Foam? A slightly alkaline snow-foam concentrate (pH 8.5) for the touch-free pre-wash that sits right between the pH-neutral Gentle Snow Foam (pH 7.5) and the alkaline Active Foam (pH 9.5). NTA- and phosphate-free, 3 to 8 ml per car, a dense foam blanket with a long dwell on vertical panels. Not the pick for pure decon washes before machine polishing.

Koch-Chemie Ultra Foam "Uf" is a highly concentrated Snow Foam pre-cleaner concentrate out of Unna for the touch-free pre-wash phase. With a slightly alkaline pH of 8.5, it closes the gap between gentle, pH-neutral cleaning foams and harsh pre-cleaners that strip a natural wax in a single wash. The formula skips NTA, phosphates and EDTA.

It runs on a high share of anionic surfactants that build stable micelles inside the foam structure — spherical surfactant arrangements that trap oily dirt at their core and carry it off with the foam via their water-soluble outer shell. What that means for you: the road film clings to the foam blanket instead of the paint, and the car visibly brightens up when you rinse it off.

• pH 8.5 as the sweet-spot in the Koch-Chemie foam family. Gentle Snow Foam sits at pH 7.5 (gentle, but lifts little road grime), Active Foam at pH 9.5 (cuts through everything, but attacks carnauba), Super Foam goes extreme at pH 12.0. Ultra Foam delivers the cleaning power against road film without breaking down intact polymer sealants or ceramic coatings ahead of time. In practice: your sealant lasts visibly longer than it does under pH 9.5.
• 3 to 8 ml per car, 1:300 in the hand wash. The concentrate is calibrated for the dosing pumps of gantry wash systems. In the 20-litre drum the raw chemical cost per wash lands in the single-cent range — the economic lever that makes a throughput of 10 to 20 cars a day add up in the first place. The 1L version targets hobby detailers with a foam lance, the 5L drum is aimed at self-service bay operators.
• Dense foam blanket with a long dwell. Pro reviews confirm a luxurious, dense foam that clings to vertical panels for a long time. That's not just looks — the foam holds surfactants and carrier water on the bodywork instead of running straight down the sill. What that means for you: longer chemical contact in the same 5-minute window, and so more road film lifted per wash.

Detailing1's tip from the shop: What we see day-to-day are detailers switching over who used to run Active Foam at pH 9.5 and suddenly hit trouble with undermined sealants on their regular premium cars. The diagnosis is nearly always the same: pH 9.5 cleans reliably, but breaks down polymer sealants over the weeks. Moving to pH 8.5 cuts the alkaline load by a factor of 10 and cleans almost identically in daily work. If you run decon washes before machine polishing, stick with Active Foam — if you maintain sealants, Ultra Foam is your pick.

Mixing Ultra Foam: cold bodywork, a thin film, five minutes

Spray Ultra Foam neat onto the paint and you risk caustic stains on anodised trim — in the foam lance, pull it down to a maximum of one percent working concentration and never work it undiluted.

That concentration is also the threshold at which the mildly alkaline cleaning action visibly kicks in. In the consumption channel of gantry wash systems, dosing typically sits at 3 to 8 ml per car. In the hand wash, dilutions up to 1:300 are plenty for a straight maintenance wash. In practice that means: a 1L bottle covers around 200 car pre-washes in the hand wash, the 5L drum roughly 1,000 applications.

The bodywork has to be cold and in the shade. Above 25 degrees of air temperature or in direct sun, the carrier water dries off faster than the mild alkali can work — the local concentration climbs, and you get water spots on the paint or milky haze on anodised aluminium trim. From what we see day-to-day: always check paint temperature with the flat of your hand; if the paint feels warm, hit it with a flush of water first until it's below skin temperature.

Apply in cross passes from the bottom up so run-off marks don't dry on. Five minutes dwell at most, then rinse it off completely with the pressure washer. On heavily soiled cars a second pass always beats letting it sit longer — the snow-foam pre-wash is a touch-free lead-in step, not a soaking bath.

In winter the concentrate turns viscous. In unheated self-service bays the viscosity loses its flow and the dosing pump draws unevenly. The pro fix: pre-dilute the concentrate in the supply tank with warm water to 1:5 to 1:10 before it hits the venturi valve of the lance. That solves two problems at once — pump cavitation with cold concentrate and an uneven foam pattern with basic foam cannons. A foam cannon from 100 bar of pressure gives you the mechanical headroom that offsets swings in concentrate viscosity.

Substrates, sealants, limits: where the sweet-spot ends

Ultra Foam is safe on intact clear coats, unpainted polypropylene bumpers (the thermoplastic polymer that modern bumpers and trim are made from), glass and rubber seals. Applied correctly it leaves neither streaks nor water spots — provided you keep to the five-minute rule and the bodywork sits in the shade.

On sealants the real strength of pH 8.5 shows: modern ceramic coatings made of cross-linked silicon oxides — the covalent Si-O-Si matrix, a three-dimensional glass network on the paint — are unfazed by the mildly alkaline surfactant solution, because those bonds are orders of magnitude more chemically stable than the ester film of a wax. What that means for you: your coating's lifespan stays intact. Polymer sealants also last noticeably longer than under pH 9.5 — that factor of 10 in alkaline concentration translates directly into measurably longer protection-layer life.

The honest limitation: thinly applied carnauba waxes can still be undermined under weekly high concentration (1:10 instead of 1:100). Carnauba is a plant-based ester wax that gets broken down bit by bit by repeated contact with alkali. If you maintain a hand wax as a value-protecting layer, you don't run Ultra Foam at full strength as a weekly maintenance foam — for that niche the pH-neutral Gentle Snow Foam "Gsf" stays the better call, same maker, different use case.

On glass and unpainted polypropylene the product is uncritical as long as it doesn't dry on. On glass, baked-on alkali leaves a mineral haze that only an acidic glass cleaner will shift again. Rubber seals take short exposures perfectly fine; with constant use or concentrations above one percent the alkali pulls out plasticisers and the lip goes brittle — the same mechanism as with the stronger sibling products, just much slower.

Off-limits are hot brake discs after a motorway run, black bonnets in the midday sun, sun-exposed dark wheels — everywhere the water flashes off too fast and the surfactants burn into the clear coat as light streaks.

The concentrate is classified as irritating to skin and eyes. When handling it, chemical-resistant protective gloves and tight-fitting safety goggles are part of the kit. The diluted product in the foam lance no longer irritates at that strength, but a splash in the eye still needs flushing out straight away.

1L hobby, 5L pro, 20L bulk drum for three user groups

Buy the wrong size and you either pay twice or end up storing concentrate that loses its flow over time — Ultra Foam comes in three clearly separated sizes.

The 1-litre bottle is meant for hobby detailers and testers who want to get to know the product before stepping up to larger amounts. The 5-litre drum addresses self-service bay operators and smaller detailing businesses that refill weekly. The 20-litre canister targets gantry wash systems, commercial detailers with high throughput and haulage firms with their own wash bay — at a consumption of 5 ml per car the canister covers around 4,000 vehicles and correspondingly long reorder cycles.

The special niche where Ultra Foam competes economically against its own sibling products is the premium detailer. If you prep ex-lease returns with a spray sealant to follow, you want a foam that gets the paint uncompromisingly clean in under five minutes — without already starting to break down the next car's sealant.

Active Foam at pH 9.5 cleans a touch faster, but breaks down polymer sealants over the weeks. Gentle Snow Foam at pH 7.5 preserves the sealant perfectly, but leaves bug splatter and summer sap sitting on the front end. Ultra Foam lands exactly in between.

What makers rarely flag prominently: Ultra Foam replaces the DIY cocktails that pro detailers used to mix — pH-neutral foam with a splash of all-purpose cleaner — to bump up the cleaning power for a while. Those mixes are chemically unstable, the cleaning action swings from batch to batch.

Ultra Foam delivers the mildly alkaline pre-mix as a repeatable, stable formula straight out of the canister — the decisive time advantage for businesses with repeatable workflows. If you run a commercial Koch-Chemie range as standard kit and have no time for your own chemical cocktails, you'll find the ready-made sweet-spot in the foam family right here.

Application of Koch-Chemie Ultra Foam

Dispense in the foam arch, cold bodywork, five minutes

Ultra Foam is drawn into the foam lance at a maximum application concentration of one percent. In the consumption channel of gantry car washes, the dosage is 3 to 8 ml per vehicle, while for hand washing, dilutions of up to 1:300 are sufficient for a maintenance wash. The car body must be cold and in the shade – at air temperatures above 25 degrees or direct sunlight, the carrier water dries faster than the mild lye can act.

Apply in a crosshatch pattern from bottom to top to prevent runoff marks from drying. Leave on for a maximum of five minutes, then rinse thoroughly with high pressure. For heavily soiled vehicles, a second pass is more effective than leaving it on longer. In winter, the concentrate becomes viscous – the professional solution is to pre-dilute it in the reservoir with warm water to 1:5 to 1:10 before the concentrate goes into the lance's Venturi valve.

Safe on clear coat, glass, polypropylene bumpers, and rubber seals. Modern ceramic coatings made of cross-linked silicon oxides are insensitive to pH 8.5, and polymer sealants last significantly longer than below pH 9.5. Be careful with thin carnauba waxes in high concentrations – for pure natural wax care, the pH-neutral Gentle Snow Foam is the better choice.

Notes: The concentrate is classified as irritating to skin and eyes. When handling the concentrate, chemical-resistant protective gloves and tightly fitting safety goggles are mandatory – the coding of the hazard statements and the safety data sheet are available separately as metafields with the product. Do not apply to hot brake discs after highway driving, black hoods in the midday sun, or dark rims exposed to the sun – in all these cases, the water evaporates too quickly and the surfactants burn into the clear coat as light streaks. Store frost-free between 5 and 30 degrees, in the closed original container, it can be stored for several years.