Weird cleaner / sanitizer interaction

Aloha all!

Nothing like the excitement in joining a new forum! Glad to be aboard!

I've recently decided to explore one of those hands free, no rinse cleaners. I wanted PBW, but the LHBS was out, so I got One Step. On Wednesday, I put all my bottles into One Step and left them to soak.

Yesterday, I was bottling 2 batches (a cream ale and a dunkleweizen), 5 gallons each. I mixed up a 5 gallon pail of Idophor, my sanitizer of choice.

I didn't really see any reason to bother with a drying stage between the One Step and the Idophor. I mean, really, if the cleaner is rinse free, what would that extra half-hour buy me, right? So I took the bottles straight from the cleaner, emptied them, and plunged them into the sanitizer.

The 5- gallon bucket holds 14 upright bottles. By the time I get the bottles 13 & 14 submerged and filled, it's been well over 60 seconds for bottles 1 & 2, so I go straight ahead and start taking the bottles out.

Funny thing, though... all the color was gone from my Idophor by the time I had the second round of bottles submerged!

Ok, so One Step is an oxygen-based cleaner, conceptually the same thing as OxyClean, right? And OxyClean boasts about getting stains out of clothing, including iodine stains.

And finally we get to my question. Was the cleaner simply taking the color out of the sanitizer, or was it actually neutralizing it?

HawaiianHippie said:

Was the cleaner simply taking the color out of the sanitizer, or was it actually neutralizing it?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if it was doing both!

One Step is sold as a combo product...both cleaner and sanitizer, hence it's name. It's not actually FDA approved for the latter, but I bet it's reasonably effective as a sanitizer.

In any case, I don't think it's ever a good idea to be mixing different cleaners and sanitizers, as chemical interactions are likely. Why risk compromising the efficacy of your sanitizer, or producing off flavors?

I stick with Oxiclean or PBW, thoroughly rinse, and finally sanitize with Starsan. Iodophor is good too, just not my preference. But if I was going to use One Step, I'd use it as intended: by carefully mixing it at the recommended strength, and not following it with another sanitizer.

BTW, welcome to the forum!