I have seen several people talk about how they use their sanitizer in a spray bottle. I have always filled a bin with water and soaked my tools in that. Also I usually do a full 5 gallons for whatever bucket or fermentation chamber I am fermenting in. Is this overkill? Should I be soaking my tools and just spraying everything else down or spraying everything down to save the star san? am I wasting it by filling my ferm chambers all the way up with full 5 gal of sanitizer? Should I just slosh it around? I was under the impression that it was necessary for some of this stuff to soak.
Contact time is the key and that doesn’t necessarily mean soaking. For either StarSan or Iodophor, that just means they have to be wet for the recommended amount of time. That doesn’t mean soaking stuff in it, although you can.
gotcha. So as long as the sanitizer has been on the equipment for X time, it should be good. Even if its just a light coating spray? Guess ive been wasting a lot of star san XD
Correct. Yeah, I did the same as you for many years. But once I figured out that contact time is the key, I started making smaller batches of sanitizer.
Thanks! Ill prolly still make a small bucket for things like tubing and racking canes, but for the carboy/ bucket, ill prolly just spray from now on. Thanks!
Using the spray bottle definitely helps but I’ll give you my procedure, which doesn’t waste star san either. I pour my bucket of star san into a thoroughly cleaned fermenter bucket, put on the lid and shake like hell. A couple minutes late I pour the sanitizer back into its storage bucket. I like the spray bottle for spot sanitizing especially. Lots of ways to get there.
Star San solution can be stored for reuse if it is not visibly dirty with crud. As long as the pH remains below 3.2 it is still effective. The solution may be cloudy if you use well water. That does not mean it is no longer effective. The cloudiness comes from the acids reaction with minerals in the water. I store the sanitizer in one gallon jugs to make it easier to move around and pour from. The spray bottle is very handy for sanitizing the beer/wine thief and the top of the fermentor before taking a SG sample.
edit: As long as the pH remains below 3.2 it is still effective
Should be as long as the pH remains 3.0 or below.
Isn’t that gonna depend on your individual well water?
Like Hoosier, I make up a 5 gallon batch of star san with distilled water from the store. Making it with distilled water allows the solution to remain viable for a longer period of time. I store it in a 5 gallon ale pale with a lid. This is easy for my larger items (racking canes, autosiphon, wine theif, and siphon tubing). I also have a spray bottle with star san in it for spot sanitizing (opening of carboy, tap connections, etc).
I only really change out the star san solution when there is a fair amount of crud collecting in the bottom of the pale. Otherwise, it is good to go. I typically get about 5-6 brews including brewdays and packaging with 1 batch.
Yep. With distilled, it stays clear - more the matter of collecting crud in the bottom, as said.
As many others mentioned, you don’t “need” to soak to sanitize effectively. That said, I soak everything. Not necessarily because I am worried about effectiveness, but because it is so easy. I have a dedicated brew space… so, in my case it might be easier to do than others. But, I keep a 17 gallon tub with 10 gallons of star san in it. I mix up a new batch maybe once a month simply because it can get a bit dirty after awhile with debris. So… it ultimately still costs almost nothing to use even this unnecessary amount of Star San.
I can easily throw whatever I want in the tub… fermenters, fittings, tubing, bottles, etc. I fill kegs with the starsan and then push it back out into the tub with CO2 for sanitizing and purging kegs. Things can soak for a few minutes while I am doing something else, or until I am ready to use it. And, I never worry about “missing” a spot. I still keep a spray bottle for some things where it is handy as well.
Same here. I use my old bottling bucket for star San storage and drain some into fermentor, slosh around and pour back into bucket. Usually replace about every 4-6 brews and always checking PH before use. I also pour some into a wall paper tray for random stuff
Didn’t realize it could be reused. I have definitely been wasting it then haha!
On a side note, I found a pretty cool bottle at Walmart the other day that is chemical resistant and best of all, will spray at any angle which is great behind, around and under stuff. It’s about $3
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Bottle-Crew-Wide-Mouth-32-Fl-Oz-Spray-Bottle/45794667
I have two buckets filled… One with cleanser and the other with sanitizer. This way things can soaks and I don’t have to worry about it. Plus after brewing I reuse both during the cleaning process.
That’s what I do. I buy a gallon of distilled water and add .25 oz of sanitizer. I fill a spray bottle for spot sanitizing and the rest goes into my fermenter. I shake that several times throughout my brew and then drain it back into the gallon jug right before I add my chilled wort.