Newest Threads

Carne de Perro · 10-14-2006, 09:14 PM

So I have a bottle of Star San and the directions tell me to let it air dry. How long do I actually have to wait before it's safe to add the wort and pitch the yeast? With the local humidity around here, it could be 3 days before the carboy dries.

**Chairman Cheyco** · 10-14-2006, 09:20 PM

What directions are those? You never let star-san dry, just pour you wort in right on the bubbles. If it dries it's no longer protecting anything. Throw those instructions away!

**Yuri_Rage** · 10-14-2006, 09:20 PM

Give it 5 minutes or so with the sanitizer in the carboy, dump as much as you can out, and siphon the wort into the carboy. It's just a low pH food grade phosphoric acid blend, so it's not gonna hurt anything. Someone here actually left a quite a bit (on the order of GALLONS if I remember right) of the stuff in a fermenter and wound up with good beer.

**Yuri_Rage** · 10-14-2006, 09:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chairman Cheyco

What directions are those? You never let star-san dry, just pour you wort in right on the bubbles. If it dries it's no longer protecting anything. Throw those instructions away!

I just read my bottle to make sure it was indeed phosphoric acid, and the air dry part of the instructions is right on the back of the bottle. Funny, I don't remember ever reading that, and I know I never actually let the fermenter or other articles dry out before using them...seems counterproductive.

**Chairman Cheyco** · 10-14-2006, 10:11 PM

They must mean 'don't touch it' like wiping it off with a grungy towel. A bit misleading if you ask me.

**Biermann** · 10-14-2006, 10:14 PM

I hate the large a$$ bubbles that star san leaves behind. For some reason, it bothers me, and I have to resist the urge to rinse.

I've found out that if you pour a little vodka in the fermenter and swirl it around, the bubbles go away. I then dump the vodka, and drain the wort in.

That said, I never air dry.

Carne de Perro · 10-14-2006, 11:59 PM

Thanks, that sounds A LOT easier than the bleach soak I've been using! Curious about the directions though. Maybe when they say "air dry" they really mean "don't rinse or wipe". I picked it over Idophor to avoid staining everything in sight if(when) I spill the bottle so it's good to hear the effect of Starsan on beer is negligible.

DUDEbeer · 10-16-2006, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Biermann

I hate the large a$$ bubbles that star san leaves behind. For some reason, it bothers me, and I have to resist the urge to rinse.

I've found out that if you pour a little vodka in the fermenter and swirl it around, the bubbles go away. I then dump the vodka, and drain the wort in.

That said, I never air dry.

I usually use a fresh gallon of distilled H20, but I like the vodka idea.

**kornkob** · 10-16-2006, 08:22 PM

It's advisable to wait at least 2 minutes after contact to ensure that the star san has had a chance to kill enough of the buggers before you add the wort--- but you can drop that wort right on top of the bubbles, even on the liquid, without any worry.

I usually make only about 2 gallons of sanitizer for a brew day. Sanitizing the carboy involves funneling in the 2 gallons, pikcing upt eh carboy and capping it with my hand, giving it a vigorous coupel shakes and pouring the sanitizer in a bucket. Lots of bubbles remain in the carboy, which I invert and let 'drain' in a carboy trying stand till I need it.

madjazz · 10-18-2006, 08:10 AM

What are people's thoughts on using Star San to sanitize bottles?

I have done this a few times already without anything unhappy. But the no rinse when putting beer in the bottle is hard to deal with mentally sometimes...