rinsing after sanitizing?

Ok, I have always used bleach to sanitize. I've never really known if it's ok to rinse with water after sanitizing.

I don't really want any bleach in my beer, but am not sure it's ok to rinse.

I have city water, and believe it to be clean.

In general, this applies to the equipment I'm using during brewing, but also to my bottles. I usually sanitize the bottles the night before, and simply turn them upside down to dry (but not rinse) them. This has worked fine for me, but not sure if it's the best way.

TIA.

The old school of thought was to rinse with tap water but that kind of defeats the purpose of sanitizing in the first place.
The problem with leaving any bleach in the fermenter or on your equipment is that, even with very small amounts, bleach lends nasty flavors to beer.
My recommendation is to rinse with very hot water.
You need to look at getting some no rinse sanitizer in the future. StarSan and Iodaphor are the most popular. I recommend StarSan for it's ease of use. They seem expensive but they are really not that bad. You don't use much so a bottle goes a long way.

thanks much. how hot is hot? I keep my hot water heater at 120*F - could crank it up though. Probably invest in some sanstar.

invest in star san. its no rinse, won't screw up the flavor if you don't get it all drained, and the solution can be reused several times before you have to toss it...so its actually very economical.

This is my first post on what seems to be a great forum.

Even though I do not use Star San yet I think it's an eventuality for every serious home brewer.

With that being said bleach with a hot tap water rinse is just as good and actually gives me the warm and fuzzies much more than Star San without a rinse.

If your worried about hot tap water having nasties in it think about what kind of nasties are on your hands.....which are the last point of contact for much of your brewing equipment.

If your worried about chlorine contamination pour a small amount of bleach in a cup, top it off with hot water and let it sit for a bit.....I would be surprised if you could smell much chlorine after a few minutes since hot tap water oxidizes chlorine on contact.

Just my 2 cents

Hedghog

I'm with you. I don't want any chemicals at all in my beer.
I use Iodaphor To soak things then blast with hot water thoroughly. Seems to have worked so far. No infections or problems,
I use bleach in the bottles with water before making yeast starters.. Then rinse em out with hot water. Haven't had any issues. I just tried star san and have a tendency to try to wash it all away even though people have said it wont hurt. I like the iodaphor cause you can see it. I love Homebrew Virginia Wolf

starsan 10000%. It foams up to get into all the cracks, you can rack into a carboy filled to the top with foam without any problems, it's inexpensive, you can re-use the solution multiple times, hell you can even drink it if you wish (I've heard of some people drinking it).
Even if you leave a 1/2 gallon in the fermenter, the only problem you will have is a watered down beer.

I used to use bleach as a sanitizer, but found myself rinsing (and rinsing, and rinsing) to get the chlorine smell out. Even if I didn't smell it, I would re-rinse a couple of times "just to be sure". It really took alot of the fun and desire out of brewing that I had. I loathed anytime I had to sanitize anything. I let a batch of oatmeal stout that I spent extra time on slowly fade away in a secondary because of it. Never got around to bottling because I dreaded rinsing the bottles twenty times each!

Then I discovered StarSan. Now I don't worry about sanitizing or rinsing. It completely resparked my brewing emotions.

Bleach = A pain in the butt!
StarSan = Easy, no problems.