I bounced this around on another board and got a mix of replies. I was racking a beer from primary to secondary over the weekend and anytime I sanitize a vessel, I fill the whole thing up with the solution. I don’t make a quart and swish it around. I consider it insurance, some might consider it wasteful. Anyway, I used to pour the thick sanitizer into the vessel and then run cold water in there. The issue is that it made a lot of foam that way. I don’t “fear the foam” but if I’m filling a Better Bottle, having all that foam in there is going to make filling it all the way a long job. So then I started putting a gallon or two in there and THEN pouring the sanitizer in, swirling it to mix the sanitizer and then filling it the rest of the way. I did this a week or so ago with a 6.5 gallon plastic primary. At some point when there were 3-4 gallons of water in there, I reached down to the bottom of the bucket and sure enough I felt the thick, syrupy undiluted Starsan on the bottom of the primary. This is not quite as alarming but if that had been a secondary or a keg and I didn’t notice that sanitizer on the bottom, I could have racked beer right on top of undiluted Starsan. Further, my ground water right now is 46° which would possibly make the sanitizer even more stubborn to mix in properly. Someone on another board mentioned mixing the Starsan in a bucket first, making sure it’s totally mixed and THEN rack it to secondary or keg. I occasionally have a beer that tastes “off” but doesn’t taste contaminated. It tastes sort of “dirty” or something. Am I the only one who has thought about this? I’m concerned I have ruined batches of beer by not thoroughly mixing the solution together. Thoughts?
FWIW, I always mix up either a 5 gallon or 2.5 gallon mixture of Starsan in a bucket. I take the inside of a racking cane and stir like mad, making sure to get the bottom the bucket mixed up in case there is some syrup. I then take that and pour it into a keg or my fermenter.
Yeah, this may be my new approach. It will take slightly longer but this idea that I might have allowed beer to come in contact with undiluted Starsan is a little discouraging. I don’t KNOW that I’ve ever done this but I know this stuff is thick and stubborn and 46° water can’t help… it would be that much more stubborn. Some others have mentioned they use hot water but I thought the instructions said to use cold.
My approach was RDWHAH, & go with making 1/2 a container’s worth of sanitizer, & use the foam to sanitizes the walls of the container. I’d go through the effort to swish it around 3-4 times while it was soaking just to make sure that the surfaces all stay wet, but that’s about it.
Forgot to add that yes, I think that cold water is perhaps slowing down the dilution process. Just make sure that the Starsan solution mixture (once you mix it) is turning the mixture light blue. Then you know it’s still good and all mixed up. I kid.
Only properly diluted starsan is no rinse!
I reuse starsan for a long time. I check that the pH is below 3 if it seems that it has been a long time since I made some fresh starsan. I don’t go by cloudiness as there is enough hardness in my tap water to make properly diluted starsan go cloudy without rinsing anything.
I make up a 5 gallon batch of starsan mixing 1 oz with 5 gallons of DISTILLED water from the store. I store it in a classic ale pail with a lid and it lasts for months. The only reason I end up changing it out for fresh is simply because stuff falls in it after a while (and many sanitizing of brews) and I get worried that it may inadvertently infect a batch somehow. ???
Sorry to hear about the starsan mishap. I think a spray bottle works really well and prevents such occurrences.
I just spritz and spritz and spritz. Spritzing is where it is at.
Exactly what I do. I get as much as a year from 5 gallons.
Do you store yours in a keg or bucket?
Keep Star San solution in one gallon jugs. Add a couple cups to the clean fermentor, swirl it around to completely cover the fermentor with the solution/foam. Invert the fermentor while you do some other stuff then pour the solution back into your jug. Star San is a wet sanitizer. You only need to wet the surfaces.
You can eliminate the residual foam with a spray bottle if you don’t want it in the fermentor.
A fermentor is a lot safer to handle when it isn’t full.
Bucket. I’m leery of leaving that long in a keg. Aside from that, I like the ease of removing the lid and filling a spray bottle, soaking racking tube, etc. in there.
Starsan is cheap. Cheap enough to make and throw away and not worry about it. Spritz! ;D
Sure, but there are those times where you only need to sanitize a couple of items. Have a bucket around is handy here.
+2 - I use RO and replace when I spill or lose enough to blowoff containers.
I’m a soaker.
spray bottle for me. everything is already uber clean before it gets hit with starsan. not one issue in 4+years now.
I’ve been taking a two-pronged approach to sanitization: Star-san and Iodophor.
I keep a 5-gallon batch of star-san around at all times, and use that for the bulk of my sanitizing. Usually it’ll last around a month or two before enough crud accumulates at the bottom of the bucket that I’ll dump it and make a new batch.
Iodophor is my “nuclear” option, as it works on wild yeasts and molds. Typically I’ll use this on occasion to kinda “reset” everything for the Star-san. I also use this for bottling, and as the only sanitizer on anything I feel is “critical”.
To sanitize a carboy, I’ll add about a pint or so, hold it sideways and shake, then rotate and repeat for two full revolutions. Then drain as best I’m able and move on. Only infection so far has been traced to a dirty blowoff tube, and that was before I started the iodophor routine.
On most of my utensils (brew day and after), I use bleach (old fashioned 5% sodium hypochlorite) for almost everything. It does not depend on temp or pH to completely kill everything, period. I know, there is the worry about carry-over into the finished product. I have never had that happen (I will get grief for that statement). I use a 10% solution (approximately).
For my 5-7 gallon glass carboys: After I empty a beer from them ( primary or secondary) I find that adding 2-3 cups of bleach, then filling them with cold water, let them set for several days, requires NO scrubbing. All of the residual stuff gets removed, and all I have to do is rinse the vessel, and I have a clean, sanitized, ready to us carboy.
For the utensils: on brew day, I soak my stuff in a solution that contains 2 cups or more of bleach in 4 gallons of water, I bury my transfer tubing, funnels, air locks, stoppers, racking canes, etc. for at least 20 minutes.
I rinse all of these items with HOT water before I use them. I rinse the carboys with about 2 gallons of water swirl and dump, about 3 times, I rinse with HOT water for a few minutes before use.
I like using bleach, because it will kill everything, regardless of temp or pH.
For my bottles: I used to only use a sanitizer, but I recently got some funk in several batches. Going back to bleach as a cleaner for them as well.
Call me paranoid, but I do like the killing power of bleach.
If im using well water, I fill soak and dump. Usually fermenters on brew day.
Everything else I use gallon jugs of distilled with 6ml mixed in. Stores long and I use it in spray bottles.
Lately ive been using iodophor at the no rinse dilution for kegs