Lowering water pH and using StarSan

I have really hard water and am concerned that when I use StarSan at its recommended dilution that the pH of the solution will be >3.

I know that I could just go buy some Distillated or RO water, but was wondering if there's a way around that.

What are your opinions of adding a small amount of distilled white vinegar to your sanitizing solution to ensure that pH will be <3 when I add StarSan? Off the top of my head I'm thinking 1tblsp (or less) of vinegar to a gallon of water??

My first thoughts are that the vinegar may impart off flavors???

Go with the distilled water. For 88 cents a gallon at walmart, you can store a 5 gallon solution in a bucket and keep it for a couple months. Keep a small amount in a spray bottle to use even less at a time.

The hardness of your water doesn't really matter. is the pH of your water really high? If so, you might have problems. If not, the starsan turning hazy instantly really isn't a problem. Just mix one gallon or less at a time. I mix a gallon on brew day, and still have some left over. You only really need a half gallon to sanitize the fermenter. Some for the spray bottle and the extra is there just in case.

I'm pretty sure my water's pH is around 8, but I can confirm that later tonight. I can guarantee you that the buffering capacity of it is really high.

Vinegar won't likely make the difference.
IT might but I'd wonder if it might actually interfere at least in the potency of star san.
Why not just make it a little stronger and forget about it?

Ichthy said:

I'm pretty sure my water's pH is around 8, but I can confirm that later tonight. I can guarantee you that the buffering capacity of it is really high.

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I'm in Eastern Nebraska, and we have pretty hard, 7.8pH water that is high enough in carbonate and general hardness..that I bet its like yours.

my star-san stays at 3.0 or below for several weeks in my tap water. get some pH test strips or a meter and see if you even have an issue. I would not be exposing wort to any vinegar residue.

Cliff897 said:

Vinegar won't likely make the difference.
IT might but I'd wonder if it might actually interfere at least in the potency of star san.
Why not just make it a little stronger and forget about it?

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If you make it too strong it no longer becomes no rinse. http://www.fivestarchemicals.com/tech/starsan.pdf

I'll likely just mix with regular tap water. Was just curious if anyone had tried this to prolong the life of their sanitizing solution.

you can also just add a little more star san to the solution when it goes about pH 3.0 and it'll drop right back down and stay active several weeks again. I sometimes 'boost' my solution on bottling day.