I don't even use alcohol after the muriatic acid ... take it right out of the acid, immediately dip/swish around in water, immediately plate. Since the Muriatic acid is water soluble I don't really see the need. Although I do have the alcohol on hand ... might try it the next time. But the parts seem to plate fine without that step.
I've gone from preparing batches, to just doing single parts at a time. Doing batches was taking up too much room, was getting hard to organize and keep track of the parts. Now I just plate parts for whatever I happen to be working on at the time. I keep a small batch of plating solution sealed up and ready, with a work lamp pointed at it 24/7 to keep it close to the proper temp.
I have discovered that in general it's hard to mess up zinc plating, you'd have to TRY to mess it up. Just about any formula works, just about any voltage/amps (except too much). Probably the biggest factor is arrangement of the zincs around the parts.
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