starsan in a finished beer

Long story short, I accidentally added about two quarts of starsan to a five gallon batch of brown ale. I did a quick search, but couldn't find infomation on the effects of that large of a quantity on a beer that had reached FG. Any information would be appreciated.

Starsan is no longer starsan once yeas is involved. It breaks down to what amounts to yeast food. Many of the same ingredients as those in coca cola. Everything will be fine.

That's what I was hoping to hear. The beer was already cold crashed to clarify. Would you recommend warming it up?

wow that is a lot of starsan. How did you have that much in the first place?

Revvy said:

Starsan is no longer starsan once yeas is involved. It breaks down to what amounts to yeast food. Many of the same ingredients as those in coca cola. Everything will be fine.

Click to expand...

I've heard this as well. How does the starsan differentiate between "good" yeast and "bad" yeast, as well as other wort gobbling nasties? It seems like something that breaks down into yeast food so quickly would not be the greatest sanitizer. Not arguing the fact, starsan is all I use. I just want to understand how it can be sanitizer, and yeast food.

I cold crashed in the fermentation fridge. Unfortunately, I forgot to replace the blow off tube which ran into about a gallon of starsan. It slowly siphoned due to the vacuum in the carboy.

Follow up in case anyone is interested. The Beer tastes great and I didn't die.

this is good to know because I, also, cold crashed my hefe without taking the blow off tube out and it sucked in about 1 qt of starsan. So far the beer tastes fine.

8rnw8 said:

I've heard this as well. How does the starsan differentiate between "good" yeast and "bad" yeast, as well as other wort gobbling nasties? It seems like something that breaks down into yeast food so quickly would not be the greatest sanitizer.

Click to expand...

Simple matter of concentration and pH. I use 75% phosphoric acid in the brew pub to adjust mash/sparge water pH, and it will give you a nasty burn. I also drink phosphoric acid in the form of various sodas almost daily.

This is exactly why I would never immerse the blow off tube in liquid. It's just asking for trouble. If you're really worried about critters, you can loop the tube and put some water in it, so it acts like an airlock. After heavy blowoff, you end up with a yeast slurry there instead of water, but hey it accomplishes the same thing. And that little liquid can't get sucked back into the fermenter.