Is it good to use any household bleach for sanitizing

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CaptainCool

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I know many people use bleach to sanitize equipment and i guess i'm sortof a Brew-Noob so i'm just makin sure any bleach is fine.. I've got a bottle of clorox bleach at my house. Is that good?
 
Clorox bleach is fine. Any plain household bleach is fine.

While bleach is cheap, effective, and usually always on hand, there are some disadvantages to using it as a sanitizer. For one, it will pit and weaken stainless steel (any metal) that is subjected to frequent lengthy contact. It requires a contact time of 20 minutes to be effective in sanitizing. It must be rinsed off thoroughly, which wastes water and may re-introduce undesirable bacteria. It stinks. It's slimy.

Iodophor and Star San are both excellent sanitizers. I prefer Iodophor, which is based on iodine, because it is also quite cheap and easy to use and doesn't produce any foam like the more expensive Star San.

See John Palmer's How to Brew chapter 2.2.3
 
It's a pretty good cleanser, but lousy as a sanitizer. Don't get me wrong... bleach will kill almost anything, especially when acidified, but it has to be rinsed so thoroughly that you will potentially re-contaminate the surface you're sanitizing unless you're rinsing with a sanitizing solution (which you could have used instead of bleach in the first place).
 
Don't use bleach except on occasional cleaning jobs if at all. It's just too much of a pain to have to worry about when using. Get a big tub of carbonate based cleaner (PBW) and some iodophor. You shouldn't even need bleach.

Anything that's not no-rinse is going to be more trouble than it's worth.
 
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