TheBrewers

Recipes 

Hi..Doreen here I just start all over again. I am out of sanitizer around and a storekeeper recommend me 99% Ethanol sanitizer. He say this will work fine as it spray on and let it dry and everything fine. But the 4th day now my ferment is kind of blur and real cloudy white + yellow. Still fermenting with a 5mm sediment floating. I ferment it at 21-24 degree C. Is that going to be fine? The smell is still fine and no sour smell on it. I am not sure is this going to be fine? This time the fermentation is kind of slow and there is a thick sediment below slowly thin down. Never see this happen before. Fail again?

Please advise. Thank you very much.

Captain Damage

Recipes 

Your description of the fermentation sounds fine, but it's still a little too soon to tell if there is any kind of infection. Right now the yeast is still too active to be able to notice anything else. Give it another week or two before you start to panic. And if you don't smell or taste an infection then, I think you're okay. While we usually don't recommend ethanol for sanitizing, I think this is probably mostly due to the cost, which is much higher than StarSan or Iodphor or bleach. I would assume that ethanol, in conjunction with good cleaning practices, would work well as a sanitizer.

__________________
• KªRL •

FERMENTING
(dormant)

BOTTLED
KPA Khitomer Pale Ale
Battle Cruiser Blonde Ale
Victory Ale
Quadro (barley+wheat+rye+triticale)
Targ's Blood Nut Brown Ale
Ginger Beer

TheBrewers

Recipes 

Captain Damage: Thanks. Guess I am too worried about my brew I can't find any other sanitizer around as clorox is not recommended. So the shopkeeper told me this 99% Ethanol is best suit and it's the one and only food grade sanitizer this make me no choice and give it a try. Hopefully it will works fine... Thanks again. Glad to hear that.

Doreen

JonM

Recipes 

Probably okay to use in a pinch, but be extremely careful spraying ethanol when there's an open flame under your pot ...

__________________
Now I guess I'll have to tell 'em, that I got no cerebellum ...

MuchoGusto

Recipes 

Ethanol at 99% is a very poor sanitizer. Water is required along with the alcohol to "deactivate" cell membranes which is why isopropol alcohol is widely available at a 70% concentration.

Quadrupled

Recipes 

MuchoGusto is correct about the 70% concentration. However, while working in a cell culture lab, I (and others) had ocassionally swapped out isopropyl alcohol for ethanol with no problem.

TheBrewers

Recipes 

JonM: Thanks for the advise
MuchoGusto & Quadrupled: isopropyl alcohol is not food grade (rubbing alcohol). Is it really suitable to sanitizing my equipment including fermenter? Thanks

Doreen

Calder

Recipes 

Unscented clorox bleach is fine. Use a few tablespoonsfull in 5 gallons. The biggest issue with bleach is that you need to rinse it off with hot water after use.

I keep all my fermenters filled with a mild bleach solution when not in use.

tre9er

Recipes 

Are you able to get the chlorine smell out of them easily when time to ferment?

__________________
_________________________________
Skål!
Den Faaborg Bryggeri

Calder

Recipes 

No problem. It is a very low strength bleach solution; literally a few tablespoons in 5+ gallons. The key is to rinse well with very hot water. I use hot tap water, add a couple of pints, swirl it around and empty ...... repeat a couple of times.

I use idophor for everything else.