Can I prepare iodophor liquid myself from chemicals bought at a local store?

I am wondering if there is a way to prepare this so-called iodophor sanitizer at home from chemicals available from stores?
I actually have no access to star san, nor to iodophor (too expensive to have them shipped to where I live, and local stores dont sell them) and I am looking for a good quality sanitizer that I could prepare myself.

You can do a bleach solution. FDA recommends 1/2 oz per gallon. I prefer to use RO/DI water to reduce the amount of contaminates.

Good practices is to soak for five minutes then wash off with clean water and dry.

Please correct me if I am wrong I am a newbie

jlennon said:

You can do a bleach solution. FDA recommends 1/2 oz per gallon. I prefer to use RO/DI water to reduce the amount of contaminates.

Good practices is to soak for five minutes then wash off with clean water and dry.

Please correct me if I am wrong I am a newbie

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RO....expensive bottled water is what can be considered as RO here...so that is just not an option.
What does DI stand for?

Elysium said:

RO....expensive bottled water is what can be considered as RO here...so that is just not an option. What does DI stand for?

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DI is an extra two stages in RO filtration that remove ions from the water. Simple three stage RO will work.

If RO is not an option you have bottled water or if you are a DIYer you can buy a 10" $20 whole house filter canister from Home Depot, fit it with some adaptors to connect a garden hose, and use a simple carbon block to remove most fine particles, and chemicals. If you are using well water I would not worry about any filtration.

jlennon said:

DI is an extra two stages in RO filtration that remove ions from the water. Simple three stage RO will work.

If RO is not an option you have bottled water or if you are a DIYer you can buy a 10" $20 whole house filter canister from Home Depot, fit it with some adaptors to connect a garden hose, and use a simple carbon block to remove most fine particles, and chemicals. If you are using well water I would not worry about any filtration.

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If you're just using it for a sanitizer, plain old tap water will be fine.

bja said:

If you're just using it for a sanitizer, plain old tap water will be fine.

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So am I being anal?

jlennon said:

So am I being anal?

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If you're using Star san or iodophor I would use RO water just because it'll last longer. For a diluted bleach mixture it doesn't matter.

Hydrogen peroxide is a good sanitizer. It is especially good for the last step of sanitizing a carboy before filling with cooled wort. Hydrogen peroxide evaporates into oxygen, so a carboy sanitized with hy.P. and allowed to dry would be a vessel rich in O2, a great place to add cooled wort which would need lots of O2 to help fermentation along.

Iodophor is used widely by restaurant, food production, and dairy industry.
The generic description is "concentrated broad spectrum iodophor disinfectant and no-rinse sanitizer" and it seems that each company has their own name for it. You'll probably have to buy a gallon.

If all else fails:
Mix 1 oz bleach in 5 gal water, then add 1 oz vinegar; 30 seconds minimum contact/soak time, and don't rinse.

CallMeAl said:

If all else fails:
Mix 1 oz bleach in 5 gal water, then add 1 oz vinegar; 30 seconds minimum contact/soak time, and don't rinse.

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Doesn't mixing bleach with an acid (vinegar) release toxic chlorine gas?

shawnbou said:

Doesn't mixing bleach with an acid (vinegar) release toxic chlorine gas?

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That's the reason for mixing the bleach first. The vinegar just lowers the ph.

CallMeAl said:

If all else fails:
Mix 1 oz bleach in 5 gal water, then add 1 oz vinegar; 30 seconds minimum contact/soak time, and don't rinse.

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Why no rinse? Seems like a good way to get chlorine in your beer...

jlennon said:

... $20 whole house filter canister from Home Depot ...

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I'm no expert but I'm thinking there aren't a lot of Home Depot's in Madrid and if there are they probably don't accept USD as payment

DO NOT mix bleach and vinegar. Simple.

yeah, nothing wrong with using bleach as a sanitizer as long as you rinse well. I don't see any purpose in mixing anything else with it though since it will kill just about anything on its own.

Charlie Talley explains it easier (start about 09:30 in for counts):

March 29, 2007 - Sanitizing with Bleach and Star San
Charlie Talley from Five Star Chemicals tells us best practices in using household bleach and Star San in sanitizing equipment.


If you don't trust him, it's time to throw away the Star San!

chrishanson said:

I'm no expert but I'm thinking there aren't a lot of Home Depot's in Madrid and if there are they probably don't accept USD as payment

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Thank you......finally someone understands the pain I am feeling here when it comes to brewing.

Elysium said:

Thank you......finally someone understands the pain I am feeling here when it comes to brewing.

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It's not so painful as you think .

There are some places in the World where Homebrewing is MUCH harder and painful than you can imagine .

Just listen to the following Podcast and you'll see what an expert from "Five Star Chemicals" recommends for sanitation . He recommends Not to use Bleach on Plastic materials .

http://beersmith.com/blog/2013/08/0...ion-with-jon-herskovits-beersmith-podcast-62/

You should rinse with HOT water after using Bleach and use the material right afterwards . Any residual from Bleach leads to off-flavor in your Beer .

Apart from that , you have a very simple way to sanitize .

Iodophore and Starsan are not available where I live , either . But , you can make a solution and use it as the sanitizer as I always do . It works and I've had no issues by using this solution .

You just need "Povidone Iodine 10%" and a Syringe which you can buy from any Drugstore .

To make a sanitizer solution , you should make a diluted solution of Povidone Iodine . Use 1.25 milliliters of Povidone Iodine per Liter of water . By using such a solution , you don't need to rinse afterwards because the concentration of Iodine is 12.5 ppm ( 12.5 - 25 ppm --> No Rinse Needed ) .

For example , measure 2.5 milliliters of Povidone Iodine and dissolve it in 2 liters of water .

Hector

I don't mean to hijack the thread but had a quick question about iodaphor. Once a 12.5-25ppm solution is made and used to sanitize equipment, can it be saved and reused next brew day? I have been tossing mine but it would be great if I could reuse as I see many people do with star-san.

I use bleach all the time. I keep my empty fermenters filled when not in use, and keep my hoses, funnels, and other plastics in half-filled bucket.

Every time I rack a beer or empty a fermenter, I run the bleach solution through the hoses. I never get an infection.

Before contact with beer, rinse in hot tap water. For a 5 gallon fermenter you would just rinse about a pint of hot water around in it, empty, and then repeat. Bleach solution leaves a film that cold water will not remove. I believe leaving it to air dry is OK too, but since I leave everything soaking in it, I never do that.

The biggest problems with bleach:
- You can't sanitize anything metal in it. The chlorine attacks the metal and it will corrode. You can always use boiling water.
- It's a ***** rinsing out bottles with hot water. I did that 15 years ago, and I truly believe that was what drove me to give up brewing for a number of years. I do use Idophor no-rinse sanitizer for sanitizing bottles, and it makes it really easy.

There must be some restaurant supply shops around where you might be able to get a food safe no-rinse sanitizer. Madrid is a big city.

Good luck.

tgeary76 said:

Once a 12.5-25ppm solution is made and used to sanitize equipment, can it be saved and reused next brew day?

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I never keep this solution so long because it loses its effect by time . It is effective as long as it has a pale yellow color and you smell Iodine odor from it .

Hector

chrishanson said:

I'm no expert but I'm thinking there aren't a lot of Home Depot's in Madrid and if there are they probably don't accept USD as payment

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Did not notice the location. Lol. There's always eBay.