Green Oil Agent Apple Extreme Immersion 300ml

Green Oil's Agent Apple is a good degreaser that's made from environmentally friendly ingredients. Don't let that trick you into a false sense of security: this is a full-strength concoction and you should treat it with respect. It's fairly expensive, so you'll need to be sold on its eco credentials to choose it over cheaper options.

• Pros: Works well, biodegradable, smells nice
• Cons: Quite an expensive way to clean stuff

Agent Apple is an alcohol-based degreaser, made from plant-based alcohols, fermented apple extracts and orange peel extracts. It's fully biodegradable, although it's potent enough to come with a hazard label. You shouldn't pour it directly into your nearest freshwater lake, but if you spill some on your lawn it's not going to get very far.

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You might not care about that, only whether it's good at degreasing stuff. It is pretty good at degreasing stuff. Simon from Green Oil has produced a video showing how it should be used: basically, pour it into an old ice cream tub and scrub away. Wear gloves for this: it's not really stuff you want on your skin.

I chucked the transmission of my Kinesis Tripster ATR (chain, jockey wheels and cassette) in the tub and left it overnight to soak. When it came to scrubbing time it was pretty easy to get everything spick and span. The solution is pretty volatile, so it'll evaporate if you leave it out of the bottle for too long, and of course you lose some through wiping everything down and spattering it on your best jeans that you forgot to take off.

You also get some sludge at the bottom you'll need to tip away, but when I poured the remaining juice back in the bottle I had just under two-thirds of it left. Green Oil says that the degreaser is strong enough to be used three times. Certainly it's still potent on the second go at a manky chain. In the end you're probably more likely to run out of a usable amount through wastage.

If you were a bit more careful and only poured half the bottle into your scrubbing container to begin with (which would be plenty) you'd still be able to do a whole transmission, and so you'd probably get your chain and cogs looking box-fresh six or so times from the 300ml bottle; about £2 a go. That's significantly more expensive than using something like Swarfega Oil and Grease Remover, which is about £8 for 5 litres, and will also buff up your bits nicely, albeit with a little more elbow grease. So the eco credentials will need to be important to you. If they are, there's no faulting the performance.

Verdict

Strong but environmentally friendly degreaser that'll get your drivetrain shiny again