Starsan mishap

I just kegged 5 gallons of irish red. Everything went as planned, but we had a issue with sanitation.

I had placed 1oz of starsan in the keg and filled it with water. I then ran the starsan though the beer lines to flush them (after cleaning them with oxyclean and then flushing with water). I ran bout 2 gallons though the lines. I then dumped the remaining starsan and racked my beer into the keg.

It wasn't until after I had gone to bed that I realized I didn't dilute the starsan enough.

I dumped out MAYBE a half of a gallon of liquid from the keg and ran 2 gallons though the lines. So where was the other 2.5 gallons of starsan?? I got tricked by the foam! Now I'm worried about how this under-diluted starsan might effect my beer.

Can anyone ease my mind or tell me that I'm doomed?

I'm pretty sure you'll be fine, but only time will tell. I know my father-in-law overdoes the concentration on his Star San, and there's nothing I can do to talk him out of it. His beer is pretty good all the same.

I'd be willing to bet that you'll be OK.

I bet you're fine. And your keg is uber-sanitized!!

unionrdr said:

Did you make sure the keg was empty?

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Yea, the keg was dumped out before racking the beer, but there was the ever present foam (and a impressive foam snake while racking).

I know it most likely won't hurt me to drink it, I'm just worried about it hurting the precious beer.

I don't think you're doomed at all. Perhaps the beer might come out a little tart? Starsan uses phosphoric acid, which is what they put in Coke to give it that slightly tart flavor.

Only one way to find out...

DonMagee said:

Yea, the keg was dumped out before racking the beer, but there was the ever present foam (and a impressive foam snake while racking).

I know it most likely won't hurt me to drink it, I'm just worried about it hurting the precious beer.

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If it was just the foam, you're almost certainly OK.

DonMagee said:

(and a impressive foam snake while racking)

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I'm pretty sure impressive foam snakes protect the beer from all manner of off flavors. Sounds like everything will be okay.

If you had one ounce of Starsan in 5 gallons you had the right concentration.
If your keg was empty when you put the beer in it you didn't dilute the beer with Starsan.
If you had good foam the solution was not too weak.

What happened to the other 2.5 gallons??? I would guess you ran more through the system than you thought.

I'm going to go against the flow and say you're doomed. Not because of the starsan though, more because of the environment, and overpopulation, and outsourcing, and BMC dominance and things like that

I was thinking the ratio was 1 oz to 5 gallons and double checked. This is from the StarSan tech sheet.

Directions: A dilution of 1 ounce to 5 gallons of water, STAR SAN will provide 300 ppm of
dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid. After 1 to 2 minutes contact time, drain sanitizing solution equipment
thoroughly. Do not rinse. If using Star San in CIP, proper water balance must be maintained or your
pump may cavitate. If used at a rate of more than 300 ppm, a potable rinse is required

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kh54s10 said:

If you had one ounce of Starsan in 5 gallons you had the right concentration.
If your keg was empty when you put the beer in it you didn't dilute the beer with Starsan.
If you had good foam the solution was not too weak.

What happened to the other 2.5 gallons??? I would guess you ran more through the system than you thought.

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I'm pretty sure I only ran two gallons though the lines, because I have a 1 gallon pitcher and I emptied it twice.

What I think happend was I put 1oz of starsan in the keg, then I filled the keg, but instead of 5 gallons of water, the foam spilled out and I really had only about 3 gallons in the keg. So I essentially did 1oz of starsan into around 3 gallons of water.

I then ran this though the lines, dumped out the keg of the remaining starsan (after giving it a good shake to coat the inside of the keg), and filled it with my beer.

So hopefully most of the concentrated starsan got flushed out when I dumped the keg and the foam mostly got pushed out by the beer. What I was afraid of is that the starsan would leave residue behind in my keg that would 'taint' the beer at this concentration. However, it sounds like this won't be an issue. I also might switch to Saniclean for my keg and lines in the future as it doesn't foam so much.