Can I use Vinegar to sanitize?

Here is what I do to clean my bottles:

- soak them in Straight-A for a day or two.

- rinse them in cold water

- the day before I bottle, I put 1 cup of vinegar in a gallon of water, then shake each bottle in the solution.

- I rinse again with cold water.


So is this ok to do? Am I sanitizing them enough? Does the vinegar do anything besides help get rid of the residue from the Straight-A?

I have no experience with Vinegar, so I can't comment on that. When you rinse out with water, is this boiled water (and therefore sanitized)? If not, it seems like a possible way to recontaminate your bottles.

You can't sanitize with vinegar. Vinegar will not kill microbes that are harmful to your beer.

No you can't use vinegar to sanitize for brewing. Sure it will kill a lot of types of bacteria that are harmful to humans (E. coli, e.g.), but I could particularly see acetobacter feeling right at home. I recommend always using an FDA-approved sanitizer. If you do any rinsing afterwards, use pre-boiled water.

vinegar will likely do the opposite of what you want. it will only kill the stuff that already cannot live in beer and many vinegars still have live cultures of vinegar bacteria in them meaning it will turn your beer into vinegar too.

Vinegar is MADE from wine / juice by letting it get infected with the acetobacter. This is exactly what you are trying to keep out of your beer.

So no.

It's probably not harmful, up to the point where you boil. But you for sure do not want any vinegar around your wort post-boil.

Star-San costs about $10 for a 9oz supply and should last you at least a year.