I toured the Brooklyn Brewery (maybe in 2006), and they had a bunch of tubing and stuff soaking in a kiddie pool sized tank of what appeared to be iodine solution.
Indeed. Chlorine dioxide (Oxine) and peroxyacetic acid have no place in home breweies. I feel like I could get gassed or burned just reading instructions for their use. Not only that, they’re expensive and short lived. Luckily, nobody will sell or ship the stuff to you! ;D
Besides iodophor and Star San, one thing homebrewers could use like pros but rarely do is ethanol. Breweries sometimes use it in spray bottles for quick, small jobs like fittings and such.
OP - a friend who is now a pro said the big difference for him was the strength of the chemicals and the personal safety equipment required to work with those.
In addition to peracetic acid (PAA), the brewery I worked at used Saniclean as a sanitizer for clamps and gaskets since it does not foam like StarSan. You have to use a bit more of it but it works well. I use Saniclean at home to sanitize my stuff and also keep a bottle of ethyl rubbing alcohol handy to sanitize the outside of valves when I am transferring beers.
As Rob said, you do not want PAA anywhere near your home brewery. It can cause nasty chemical burns to both the skin and the the lining of your nose when it gasses off.
There was a thread recently on the BA forum about sample port cleaning which had a link to a video produced by the ASBC and the BA. Among the suggested items were a spray bottle containing 70% alcohol - either ethanol or isopropanol - and a propane torch. The reason for using 70% instead of 90% alcohol is that 90% evaporates too fast, the torch is used to burn off/evaporate any residual alcohol before taking your sample. TIFWIW.
Look up the latest Beersmith podcast. They did a whole show on cleaners and sanitizers. Mainly for homebrewers but they touched on commercial products for comparison.
70% ethanol is what the nurse uses when she wipes you down to give you a shot, and it is the most effective concentration to use for killing bacteria and other nasties. We used 70% ethanol diluted from 100% ethanol (available from the scientific supply houses) in a spray bottle to sanitize equipment in the tissue culture laboratory and the brewery.
We can’t get 100% ethanol commercially, but Everclear is a commercial product that is available in 151 proof (75.5%) and 190 proof (95%) Everclear can be diluted to 70% ethanol according to the formula concentration * volume = concentration * volume. Here’s an example for 190 proof Everclear:
Let’s say that we want to end up with 500 ml of 70% ethanol. Starting with 95% Everclear (190 proof) the math is;
500 ml X 0.70 = X ml X 0.95.
Solving for X the formula looks like (500 X 0.7)/ 0.95 or
500 X 0.7 = 350
350 / 0.95 = 386.4
So take 386.4 ml of 190 proof Everclear and dilute it to 500 ml, and Shazam! You have a half liter of 70% ethanol.
When I was doing physics research we used to purchase very pure ethanol from our department store for cleaning optics (lenses, mirrors, etc). It had very little water in it so it would cut oils (think fingerprints) and not leave any residue when it evaporated. Although it was 99% pure, there was no guarantee as to what the remaining 1% was, so it was unsuitable for human consumption. Chemicals for industrial use may not be appropriate for use near or on equipment that deals with products for human consumption. Some of the contaminants can be harmful to humans in very low concentrations that have no industrial consequences. Be very careful about anything you use on your brewing equipment. If you purchase concentrated ethanol, be sure that it is rated as safe for human consumption.
Also, I don’t think nurses use ethanol before injections. I have always received a swipe with isopropyl alcohol (i.e rubbing alcohol).
The other important thing to keep in mind here, as Charlie noted, is that you don’t want too high a concentration. That 99%, or even 90%, will evaporate too quickly to kill bugs, but I suppose that rapid evaporation is a plus when cleaning optics. Given that you don’t need or want that level of concentration, there’s no need to source laboratory products. The 151 proof Everclear really is a great choice. It is the right concentration, and allegedly safe for human consumption. Certain events in January, 1984 still lead me to question this last point, but that’s another matter.
You do not need to flame the sample port after spraying. The 70% alcohol will evaporate fast enough and the residual amount that might not evaporate is so small that it will not effect your sample at all. Plus, it is a whole lot safer than using a torch to dry it.
With regard to Charlie’s post, yes, diluted Everclear is a good idea and is not like Ethyl Rubbing Alcohol (which is denatured ethanol). But is way more work than I want to do when mixing some up to for a sample pull or a transfer. The stuff you buy in the drug store, either Ethyl Rubbing Alcohol or Isopropanol, is way easier and works just as well for quick sanitization.
Although it is true that a higher concentration of alcohol is less effective than 70%, your reason for it is not true. Water is needed so the the alcohol can penetrate the cell wall. Too high of concentration will coagulate the proteins of the cell walls, preventing the alcohol from entering the cell and denaturing proteins and enzymes inside the wall.
Not trying to nick pick, but it’s better to understand the how and why something is true.