Assuming you’re someplace that gets a fair bit of rain and that the local air quality is decent. While rain water is pretty clean, it can pick up small amounts of airborne dust and other pollutants - although the air would have to be very foul for there to be so much contamination that you can’t brew with it.
Also, if the bucket isn’t food grade, or if you let it sit with water in it long enough for algae to grow, then you could get off flavors from those sources.
Y’all may be right. I thought I heard the 3.4 number in the interview with the owner of Five Star on The Brewing Network, but I may misremember that.
Isn’t Starsan made from phosphoric acid?
Among other things, including a surfactant (soap).
This is a great topic. I’ve had the same issue. I’ll use some RO this weekend and see how it works.
Well, I was close. Jon Herskovits of Five Star Chemicals on the Brewing Network says Star San works below pH 3.5. For bleach water he said below pH 9. The show is here: http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/469
Interesting. I’m pretty sure I heard 3 from Charley Talley at 5 Star.
It could be that the “real” answer is 3.5 but they say 3.0 in the literature to give their customers a margin for error.
http://www.fivestarchemicals.com/wp-content/uploads/StarSanTech-HB2.pdf
I’d buy that. On the show, Jon also mentioned that the contact time needed is only 30 seconds even though the label says, what, 3 minutes?
I’m in the same boat that you are with tap water/Star San solution becoming cloudy. For a long time I had to go out of my way to get RO water. I purchased this an RO system a few months ago. I did a ton of research and considered having a company put a system in. I settled on a Watts brand unit. It was really easy to install. I’m so glad I put this in and I wish I would have done it much earlier. It’s been worth every penny to have easy access and being able to get RO on demand for brewing water and to make sanitizer. Plus, it gets rid of chloramines and the water tastes fantastic. The filters are super cheap at Sam’s Club when you need to replace them. Here is the system I use:
http://www.amazon.com/Watts-WP5-50-Five-Stage-Manifold-Treatment/dp/B000E77I04
I found distilled water at the drug store so I’ve got 12 L of Star-San mixed up. We’ll see how long this lasts but I’m happy to know that I can find water that will work.
Its been a couple of weeks now and the StarSan solution mixed up using my house’s ion-exchange softened water is completely clear, just like the batch mixed up with RO water sitting next to it. Both are sitting in open water glasses on my work bench. Both were mixed to a starting pH of about 2.
I’d say that using water softener water for StarSan is one of the few uses that salt-based softened water has. It looks like the clouding effect is due to the hardness ions in the water.
Speaking of water for mixing StarSan, is this likely/possible? - At the start of a brewday, I fill two 5-gallon water jugs with filtered and dechlorinated water for brewing. After brewing there’s usually some left over. Lately, I’ve used this water to mix up my StarSan. What I’ve noticed a couple of times is that the first spritz or two of StarSan give a big whiff of sulphur odor. Since the water hasn’t been boiled and it does have Campden, could that be where the sulphur is coming from?
That seems likely assuming you’ve never smelled sulfur in your water before, and I know I’ve never smelled sulfur from starsan before, and campden tablets contain sulfur.