My molten speed wax seems to have taken a brownish hue to it. Anything I need to worry about here?
Chains typically are at least wiped down before they go in so haven’t tossed a kid covered chain in there.
I think you got it to hot and it burned, it should return to it white/grey color.
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So dump it out and start again or still OK to keep using?
Unfortunately yes, I’d dump it out. What is the temperature like on your slow cooker? If there’s a low temp setting, use that one. I thought most slow cookers won’t get hot enough to do that.
Or is it contaminated? It could be scorched though. Either way, I’d toss it.
Ironic as I am going to pick up my slow cooker to start waxing in earnest. Hmm…
Did you see any fumes? You think it looks yellowish? Then yes, overheated.
IME contaminants tend to drop to the bottom of the pot / wax puck.
I did the same once, left it on medium overnight and it turned the same shade of yellow/brown. I dumped it. Lesson learned.
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And when I was looking for a slow cooker, someone in Oz said the Crock-pot with no controls was the best to get. It had no settings for temperature, and so many people said it was too low a temperature, more a ‘warmer’ than a ‘cooker’. So maybe it’d work better because it wouldn’t overheat the wax? How ‘hot’ does it have to be? The one I got has the traditional 3 settings, low, high, and warm. I guess warm it is?
I have the Silca wax too, maybe it’s more/less sensitive to heat? Feel like I’m walking out on a 2x4 in the dark, but will find my way…
He recommends waxing somewhere between 70c and 100c but usually says to shoot for 90c. He lists the flash point of Paraffin as 180c but I didn’t see if he says where it start to overheat.
But under 100c is probably a good limit.
EDIT: Celsius not Fahrenheit
Took your guys advice and dumped it. Lesson learned.
FWIW my crockpot has 3 settings; low, high, warm.
I typically will throw it on high to accelerate the melting process (all this does is reduce the heat cycle time), and then as wax is getting close to fully melted either throw it on warm or low to finish melting and then actually turn it off when i put the chain in and let it sit for 10min before removing and hanging.
I did forget once to dial it back and it “cooked” for about an hour which would have had it getting pretty hot.
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That was what I was worried about. You could set an alarm or just melt it on low.
Celsius not Fahrenheit
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One trick I learned with the warm / low / high croc pots is to set it to low and offset the cover so the heat can escape. I found that in an hour my pot can get the wax up to 200F when fully covered. By putting the cover in various positions you can get a 175-180F. Also, a cheap Harbor Freight temperature gun is really a necessity for temp control.
In length conversions, NASA lost a space probe! Seriously! 
It was a Mars probe that, due to the screw-up, entered orbit to Mars a little too close. It either burned up in the atmosphere, or bounced off it and is in a useless solar orbit. Oops… It was a running joke for quite a while, and an embarrassment for NASA and the contractors involved.
And, ironically, who blew that? The main contractor was BOEING!! Wow…
the thing is you can go well beyond 100 deg C or 212 F and it will not affect the wax… but for Molten speed wax it is a mixture and there may be something in there that did discolour. The only real thing to worry about with paraffin wax is the flash point. If the temp goes above 200-240 deg C it can spontaneously catch fire, that might not be so good but below that temp it should be fine. I use 110- 120 deg C (using an infrared thermometer to check). That makes sure there is no water left from the citrus degreaser. If you are certain you got all of the water with the alcohol or acetone then 80 deg C should be more than enough.
Be really careful with this method. When using IR you are only getting surface temp and there can be a decent disparity between that and what the actual liquid wax is temp wise. Best practice would be to use a stick thermometer - either a candy therm or something like a javelin instant read therm so that you can get the tip into the wax and get a true reading.
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fair point, but at that temp I doubt it is 100 deg C different and there is a fair amount of convection. For flash point I worry most about the air oil interface anyhow. So as long as it is well below 200 deg C then I am not too worried. The same issue can be said of the thermometer, since it is biased high if sitting on the bottom of the dish… the only way to know is stirring somewhere in the middle of the liquid.
ahh damn you’re right