I’ve been teaching a beginning homebrew class. Last night, one of the guys in the class told me that he had a friend that worked for a restaurant supply store who had hooked him up with a no rinse sanitizer called “Solution QA”. The active ingredients are n-alkyl (50% C14, 40% C12, 10% C16) dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. Anybody ever heard of this stuff or know anything about the ingredients?
Some breweries use Quatenary Ammonium as a sanitizer. There is a big chance that is the QA part.
“Quats” are the most common sanitizers for food service. They’re really nasty for your skin and (especially) lungs, and they require fairly high concentrations, around 250 ppm, to be effective. I can’t think of any reason they couldn’t be used in a brewery; I’ve just never seen it.
two minutes on Yahoo:
http://www.autochlor.net/?Module=42847C99-0511-458b-A4F8-033157542703&Key=6b8db0d5-4ab1-461f-98bb-41206008f5ef
Probably fine if you have it already and know how to use it. Then again, it’s probably no better, cheaper, or safer than what’s already available @ your LHBS.
Personally, I don’t like quats for disinfection because they need long contact times to work compared to the other options.
The label of the stuff he’s got specs a 60 second contact time. He got it for free, so that’s why he wants to use it.
Thanks for all the info, everybody!
“quat (being cationic) will kill head retention in addition to giving the beer a medicine-like flavor profile”
One Brewpub we have brewed at uses quatenary ammonia for much of the non brewing surfaces. I got to spray down the floor in the open fermentation room with what they call jokingly, death spray.
An alkyl ammonium compound would act just like soap. It has a hydrophobic tail (the alkyl group) and a hydrophilic head (the ammonium ion).
I love it when you talk dirty…
Quats are great in the brewery for anything that doesn’t touch product
That is a great statement.
What else would I sanitize in the brewery other then the stuff that will come in contact with the beer.
Help me now.
Floor drains, seams in floors, outsides of tanks where condensation collects/drips…
So does my wife, she’s a science teacher.
Head and tail, doesn’t get any better than that.
I’m surprised that Carl didn’t chime in with “hearts”
I heard from someone in food proceeding that you don’t want it on anything contacting product, so it would not work well in home brewing. No science there, but getting it cheap doesn’t justify wrecking a beer, potentially. This is one of those areas that one of the mainstream products would be best to be recommended IMO.
Thank you a10t2. I have never thought about that.
Yes I do have some mold in condensing areas on tanks.
Thanks to you all for your info. My friend has decided that in spite of the quat being free, he’ll go with StarSan instead.