Starsan Beer - Too much?

Well, I finally did it. I finally put Starsan in my beer. A lot of it too. I always fill a rubbermaid tub with 2.5 gallons of water and .5oz Starsan and use it to sanitize a lot of misc equipment instead of spraying it. Things like racking hoses, etc. Well, I had 15 minutes left in the boil so it was time to get this going. I filled up the tub and as I was squeezing the Starsan bottle to the 1/2 line the phone rang. I answered it and began talking, and while talking I walked over to the boil kettle and dumped the Starsan in! :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:

Here are the stats:
Jamil's Flanders Red
7 gallons post boil
OG 1.055
.5oz Starsan

I tasted the wort and it definitely has a Starsan aftertaste, but after the yeast and bugs have had their turn I'm not sure I would be able to notice anything, and they may just use it for nutrients. What is your opinion? Should I run with it considering this is a beer that has to sit around for a year before it's ready?

undiluted star san? I would let it go just to see what happens. I wonder if it could make the wort too acidic for the yeast.

I have no idea but it sounds like an interesting experiment.

GenIke said:

undiluted star san? I would let it go just to see what happens. I wonder if it could make the wort too acidic for the yeast.

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I'm not sure, I didn't think about taking a PH reading of the wort. I'll do that right now and post the results.

I'm still pretty new at this, but I bet it'd come down to the overall pH of your wort. I'd be interested to see what someone else would say about it. I'd be scared an dump it personally.

Setesh said:

I'm not sure, I didn't think about taking a PH reading of the wort. I'll do that right now and post the results.

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PH of wort is 4.89, which is well above danger levels for cervesia. Just calibrated my meter so this should be accurate. Beer is at 76 degrees, want to get it down to 65 before I pitch. I would normally just let it go without even asking for opinions and report back in a month or two on what the finished beer tasted like, but this is going to have to age (read take up space) for a year, so if someone has experience with this much starsan in their beer then I would love to hear it!

Forgot to update this earlier today. I pitched at 11pm last night. I checked on it just after noon today and it was about to blow off. Fast start for 1 pack of S-05 and some La Roja dregs at 67F beer temp. I'll report back when primary fermentation is done and I give the beer a taste.

I saw a thread not too long ago where someone accidentally added a large amount of StarSan to their wort and emailed the company to ask what would happen. Between the dilution and the breakdown of the compounds, it won't be unsafe to drink. I don't remember if it affected fermentation in any way.

drainbamage said:

I saw a thread not too long ago where someone accidentally added a large amount of StarSan to their wort and emailed the company to ask what would happen. Between the dilution and the breakdown of the compounds, it won't be unsafe to drink. I don't remember if it affected fermentation in any way.

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Yeah, I remember said thread as well. In all honesty I wouldn't worry about it too much, in theory it should be fine based on the manufacturer's (Five Star I believe) recommendation on similar problems. I would however follow Revvy's rules if it doesn't come out great to start and just hang on to until it does. I leave quite a bit of starsan in my fermenters, bottling bucket, bottles without any problems. While it does probably come in close to this number for a beer that goes through primary, secondary, bottling bucket and bottle, it's all diluted and I have no real way of measuring the exact amount I leave behind each time, so it's all a big guess, but with roughly 3 oz total in that equation, I wouldn't be surprised to learn I had ~1/4-1/2 oz Star San mixed in a batch.

Thanks everyone. I remember a podcast on the BN where the creator of Starsan told Justin he would have been fine after racking his beer into half a carboy full of Starsan, he thought it would effect head retention because of the surfactant in Starsan, and was unsure on flavor but said it was definitely safe to drink. He also said that the fermentation would have taken off like a shot from all the extra nutrients the Starsan breaks down into. I can at least attest to the last comment. This fermentation is raging. I added FermcapS to stop the blowoff, but this thing is rocking allong. :rockin:

At least it will be a fun experiment if nothing else, but my hope is that whatever off flavor is present won't be noticeable in a Flanders Red after a year or more. I'm betting that's pretty likely.

invictusbrew said:

Yeah, I remember said thread as well. In all honesty I wouldn't worry about it too much, in theory it should be fine based on the manufacturer's (Five Star I believe) recommendation on similar problems. I would however follow Revvy's rules if it doesn't come out great to start and just hang on to until it does. I leave quite a bit of starsan in my fermenters, bottling bucket, bottles without any problems. While it does probably come in close to this number for a beer that goes through primary, secondary, bottling bucket and bottle, it's all diluted and I have no real way of measuring the exact amount I leave behind each time, so it's all a big guess, but with roughly 3 oz total in that equation, I wouldn't be surprised to learn I had ~1/4-1/2 oz Star San mixed in a batch.

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I doubt that you are getting anywhere near the concentration that the OP got.

You are leaving diluted Starsan in your equipment. 1 ounce in 5 gallons so to end up with 1/2 ounce in your wort you would have to leave 2.5 gallons of Starsan mix in your system. It most likely wouldn't even fit in your fermenter.

The OP put .5 oz directly into his wort.

kh54s10 said:

I doubt that you are getting anywhere near the concentration that the OP got.

You are leaving diluted Starsan in your equipment. 1 ounce in 5 gallons so to end up with 1/2 ounce in your wort you would have to leave 2.5 gallons of Starsan mix in your system. It most likely wouldn't even fit in your fermenter.

The OP put .5 oz directly into his wort.

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It's a little more complex than that, as it's not going to be completely mixed, but I understand where you're coming from. My statement was never meant to state that I do what the OP did every batch I make. Furthermore, assuming the OP also sanitizes his equipment (which I would assume he does), that's more on top of the ~.5 oz that we are originally talking about here. All I meant to say is that we end up leaving more of this stuff in solution than we would probably assume and that it's actually MEANT to be able to do this.

I just had an aggressive protein break at the begging of my boil. I shot 32 oz of (diluted) Starsan into the boil to knock down the foam. I had to turn off the burner to get more water into the sprayer. I have no idea why it was so bad.

I figured I would give this StarSan Flanders a taste now to see if I was wasting aging space by keeping it around. When I went to take the sample I noticed that the pellicle had formed nicely, and it smelled very promising. The La Roja dregs had been doing their job. I drew a sample and tried it. Wow, this beer is fan-friggin-tastic! It has soured very nicely and I could in no way tell that I had dumped .5oz of concentrated starsan into this beer. I've got an "American Wild" that I started a week after this beer and used exactly the same yeast/bug process on that is nowhere near as far along as this StarSan Flanders. I'm going to let it ride and hope that it continues to do well. So far I am amazed at how good it is. I'll update next time I try it.

Thanks for the update. I once almost gave up on a batch that turned out to be my "favorite mistake" (my mash temperature got away from me among other things).

I can't believe folks are telling you to drink this. Your beer is now Star-San, just at half concentration. Would you drink 5 gallons of properly mixed Star-San? Obviously nobody would. Now how about if it were mixed at 50% the normal dose (I.e. your beer)? Doesn't sound any more appealing to me.

SpeedYellow said:

I can't believe folks are telling you to drink this. Your beer is now Star-San, just at half concentration. Would you drink 5 gallons of properly mixed Star-San? Obviously nobody would. Now how about if it were mixed at 50% the normal dose (I.e. your beer)? Doesn't sound any more appealing to me.

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The starsan would break down due to the PH of the wort/ the boil/ fermentation/ & aging. In a year he won't be able to tell and it should be perfectly safe. This is a no rinse sanitizer it has to be safe after it breaks down

mkyl428 said:

The starsan would break down due to the PH of the wort/ the boil/ fermentation/ & aging. In a year he won't be able to tell and it should be perfectly safe. This is a no rinse sanitizer it has to be safe after it breaks down

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How do you know the Star-San will "break down"? And what exactly will it break down into, and is THAT healthy to ingest? Here's what you're starting with:

15% dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid
50% phosphoric acid
35% inert ingredients

Hopefully you can answer those questions, since youre making representations about the safety of ingesting those chemicals.

Ok, I don't really want to get caught in the crossfire here, but how much phosphoric acid is there in coca cola again?

SpeedYellow said:

How do you know the Star-San will "break down"? And what exactly will it break down into, and is THAT healthy to ingest? Here's what you're starting with:

15% dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid
50% phosphoric acid
35% inert ingredients

Hopefully you can answer those questions, since youre making representations about the safety of ingesting those chemicals.

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I get what you are saying, that is the percentage of those ingredients in undiluted StarSan.

The percentages in a 7 gallon batch of beer are:

.008% dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid
.028% phosphoric acid
.020% inert ingredients

My math was this:
Beer = 896 ounces (7 gallons)
StarSan = .5 ounces
Phosphoric Acid = .25 ounces
Dodecylbenzene Sulfonic Acid = .075 ounces
Inert Ingredients = .175 ounces

My chemistry foo is not strong, but I come up with 7087mg of Phosphoric Acid in the 7 gallon batch of beer. That means there are about 8mg of PA per ounce of beer, or 64mg per cup. This should be a harmlessly dilute solution from what I can tell. I tried to find a comparison to other foods and found that the same volume of milk supposedly contains ~250mg of phosphorus, and the same volume of Pepsi ~40mg of phosphorus. BUT, this is PHOSPHORUS, not phosphoric acid. Is this comparing apples to oranges? How much phosphorus is in phosphoric acid?

Another key factor is how much of these component acids remain in the final product. The key factors as I see them are:

Boiling time of 15 minutes
1 packet of S-05 and bottle dregs from Jolly Pumpkin La Roja might consume some of the acids
Chemical reactions or chemical breakdown into some other form over time

I can't guess at how much it would break down. I know phosphorus is a necessary nutrient for yeast, but how much would the yeast consume? Would the remaining phosphorus be broken down or undergo chemical change into some other compound? I don't understand chemistry enough to know.

The flash point of StarSan is listed as 121F on the MSDS, but both of it's component acids have a boiling point of over 300F. Since the flash point is lower than that of boiling wort, does that mean it would volatilize? If so then a portion would have escaped the boil kettle during the 15 minutes boil time it was in for. This would mean that the level of acid in the beer as it went into the fermentor was less than that added with 15 minutes left in the boil.

I'm really interested to see if anyone with more chemistry knowledge can weigh in. I will also draft an email to FiveStar to see what they have to say and will report back.

Setesh said:

I get what you are saying, that is the percentage of those ingredients in undiluted StarSan.

The percentages in a 7 gallon batch of beer are:

.008% dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid
.028% phosphoric acid
.020% inert ingredients

My math was this:
Beer = 896 ounces (7 gallons)
StarSan = .5 ounces
Phosphoric Acid = .25 ounces
Dodecylbenzene Sulfonic Acid = .075 ounces
Inert Ingredients = .175 ounces

My chemistry foo is not strong, but I come up with 7087mg of Phosphoric Acid in the 7 gallon batch of beer. That means there are about 8mg of PA per ounce of beer, or 64mg per cup. This should be a harmlessly dilute solution from what I can tell. I tried to find a comparison to other foods and found that the same volume of milk supposedly contains ~250mg of phosphorus, and the same volume of Pepsi ~40mg of phosphorus. BUT, this is PHOSPHORUS, not phosphoric acid. Is this comparing apples to oranges? How much phosphorus is in phosphoric acid?

Another key factor is how much of these component acids remain in the final product. The key factors as I see them are:

Boiling time of 15 minutes
1 packet of S-05 and bottle dregs from Jolly Pumpkin La Roja might consume some of the acids
Chemical reactions or chemical breakdown into some other form over time

I can't guess at how much it would break down. I know phosphorus is a necessary nutrient for yeast, but how much would the yeast consume? Would the remaining phosphorus be broken down or undergo chemical change into some other compound? I don't understand chemistry enough to know.

The flash point of StarSan is listed as 121F on the MSDS, but both of it's component acids have a boiling point of over 300F. Since the flash point is lower than that of boiling wort, does that mean it would volatilize? If so then a portion would have escaped the boil kettle during the 15 minutes boil time it was in for. This would mean that the level of acid in the beer as it went into the fermentor was less than that added with 15 minutes left in the boil.

I'm really interested to see if anyone with more chemistry knowledge can weigh in. I will also draft an email to FiveStar to see what they have to say and will report back.

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I hope that FiveStar responds. That would certainly cut to the chase.

I had some residual StarSan in my wort. I'm thinking that the sudsing from the starsan exacerbated the foaming of the fermentation, thus causing my blow-off.

I can't wait to see this thread resurrected in a year to hear the results.

***UPDATE***

I got a reply back from StarSan:

Afternoon James,

After speaking with our chemist he stated your beer should be just fine since it was pre fermentation. However you may end up with a very low pH level.

If you have any other questions please feel free to let me know.

Cheers!

Man I love StarSan! If I had done that with Iodophor I would have had to dump the batch!

I have a chemistry minor and I don't use starsan at all ever. The phosphoric acid is safe at the dilution level stated. A lot of all grain brewers using OR water add it to their sparge. My thing is benzene. Half of your time in organic chemistry you learn about the bonding ability of benzene. It is the most cancerous compound regularly ingested in the world. It's in everything. Anytime I see Benz as part of a chemical compound I stay away. No soda, no foods, no cologne with that on it. For the OP it is safe to drink though. I sterilize with 65% ethyl alcohol. It's the same thing I sterilize patients with before surgery. So to the OP let it ride. A stop using starsan.


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GCPHomebrew said:

A stop using starsan.

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Said no one in the brewing world ever.

I'm pretty sure with the hundreds of highly educated members here in the world of chemistry, biology, and all the other super-villain smart guys, and the scrutinizing industry surrounding this hobby, if StarSan was the tumor super food you claim, it would of been attacked maliciously by now. Then again you've got the Chemist minor, and I'm just a bone-head business major, so I'm purely going off 2nd hand information.

Seriously, you believe because it's sold it's safe. They're removing chemicals left and right from the food supply. Let me guess you love trans fats too. How about sodium benzoate it's in most soft drinks. Your government nor brewing industry care for your health beyond you being healthy enough to get your wallet out. And something that causes cancer is almost never removed since it takes a lot over years to be a huge problem.


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GCPHomebrew said:

Seriously, you believe because it's sold it's safe. They're removing chemicals left and right from the food supply. Let me guess you love trans fats too. How about sodium benzoate it's in most soft drinks. Your government nor brewing industry care for your health beyond you being healthy enough to get your wallet out. And something that causes cancer is almost never removed since it takes a lot over years to be a huge problem.

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I'd say no to both of your unnecessary assumptions. I actually eat healthy everyday, and I don't drink soda at all. Again, referencing my previous post, I never said anything about the brewing industry, the government, or any of your other conspiracy organizations.

I'm pretty sure with the hundreds of highly educated members here in the world of chemistry, biology, and all the other super-villain smart guys, and the scrutinizing industry surrounding this hobby

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I also conceded you're probably smarter than me, so please don't come back with your disrespectful assumptions about my lifestyle because I'm willing to go out on a limb and assume I'm in a group of far healthier and fit individuals than a large percentage of people.

Go to cancer.org and see what is said about it. It causes cancer.


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FWIW, heavy consumption of alcohol can also lead to oral, esophageal, and colorectal cancer, yet we all happily ingest it.

I'm not advocating dumping StarSan haphazardly into every batch and it'll be gravy, but limited exposure to diluted StarSan in one batch alone is not likely to be a death sentence.

Based on what I've learned from the news, everything causes cancer.

Whoa there Doc. Correlation does not equate to Causation. That said, the largest cause of concern of benzene (even over the long run) is anemia caused by disallowing bone marrow to perform its job correctly while making blood cells. Yes, it can cause cancer. But so can your grill. And the Sun. And breathing. Yes, breathing oxygen creates free radicals when broken down and metabolized.

The issue is levels of exposure and arm-chair chemists and the media love to tout how awful everything is. Here's how it really works. In lab animals (where they get all of their research), the animals are given various levels of a compound and then allowed to live out their lives all while being administered the substance at the before-mentioned levels. You usually have a placebo group, a group that matches the best known exposure rate to the populace and then 2-8 dose levels that are absurdly high. This is how they get cancer prevalence from a specific compound. This is because it is nigh on impossible to single out specific compounds for determining cancer risks since we are all walking uncontrollable variable experiments (read, awful, awful science). But you already knew that, I am sure.

So please, in conclusion, remove the fear-mongering and holier-than-thou nature from the discussion. Your counsel is well noted, if disregarded.

As an experiment in this ideology, look up Di-hydrogen monoxide poisoning. It's all around us. Save the children! I kid, I kid, but you should get the idea.

GCPHomebrew said:

...And something that causes cancer is almost never removed since it takes a lot over years to be a huge problem.

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Do you mean that it takes lots of years before the health problems caused by the chemical come to light or that it takes years of ingesting the chemical before you will have problems with cancer? I could read that both ways but they are so far apart that I want to make sure I understand your meaning.

drainbamage said:

FWIW, heavy consumption of alcohol can also lead to oral, esophageal, and colorectal cancer, yet we all happily ingest it.

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This is a HUGE point. The dosing rates that are required for most things to become problematic are many orders of magnitude over the normal dose. Alcohol, however, is toxic at much lower levels. For instance, if I were to take 5 times the recommended daily dose of Allegra one day, I would almost certainly be just fine. I would most likely suffer no ill effects from the overdose. I can speak to the truth of this statement, having done exactly this in the early human trials of the drug. I took 5 times what is now the over the counter dose for 2 weeks and had no problems whatsoever. BUT, if I was to take 5 times the recommended dose of alcohol, it would be toxic to me. The dosage window in which ethanol is 'safe' is very narrow compared to most other chemicals.

There is a neat series on Basic Brewing Radio called Homebrew Toxicology. It is a 3 part series where they cover everything from chemicals to lead. In the end they conclude that the overwhelmingly most dangerous thing involved in making homebrew is the production of ethanol. I suggest everyone give the series a listen, it was extremely interesting.

I will definitely read up on the cancer causing properties of the supposedly 'inert' ingredients in StarSan. However, it is also true that many things in excess will lead to cancer. The method of exposure can also make a large difference in the effects. Some things, like americium, have an extremely high risk of causing a cancer if ingested in a certain way (breathing), but very little if ingested in another way (eaten). From my research I have found that it is very rarely cut and dry when it comes to cancer, and the overwhelming problem is the inconsistency and reliability of the data. Environmental influences play a huge role in the available data, skewing the results. Two identical twins (same genes), living on two different sides of the country will likely not both come down with cancer. Why did the one twin develop cancer and not the other? It can't be genetics, so it must be environmental. Was it food, radon coming through his foundation, the mechanical hamster his daughter was rolling on his face while he slept? The answer is, nobody knows! Hopefully in another 100 years this will not be the case, but for right now, cancer is largely a trial and error field. My father is dying of bone cancer caused by the Agent Orange defoliant used while he served back to back tours in Vietnam. How do we know that is what caused his cancer? The extremely large amount of his fellow soldiers that developed the same problem. The medicine they are treating him with is 'cutting edge', but all that really means is that it has been found to work very well. They don't actually understand a great deal of why it works, just that it does. As the understanding of cancer itself increases the success rate of treatment will increase as well. I just wish that we were a couple hundred years more advanced in this goal than we are right now...

As with so many things in life, moderation is key. Too much of anything is likely to be bad for you. The tricky bit is figuring out how much of any particular thing is 'too much'.

I just transferred from keg to keg and forgot to empty several solo cups full of starsan out of the receiving keg, probably at least 36-48 oz. I'm super pouty right now. I guess I'm gonna go ahead and transfer the rest and bottle as normal. I'm really pissed. I'll try and remember to post the results.