I have a bucket of 2.5 gallons of water and StarSan that I used a few days ago to sanitize my hydrometer and wine thief to take a gravity reading. I've left it out uncovered over the past few days with the intention of using it to sanitize these items for another gravity reading. But as I was about to do that, I thought is there a chance the StarSan could lose its effectiveness from being left out. I don't want to chance it to save a bit of StarSan so I dumped it and created a new solution, but thought I'd ask what you all thought.
Will StarSan go bad?
- Thread starter jkendrick
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If you mix it up with distilled water and keep it in an airtight container it will keep for months. Toss it when it gets cloudy.
JeepDiver
Well-Known Member
mattmcl said:
Wrong, with my water it gets cloudy about 5 mins after I mix it. Depends on your water. Best way to tell is test the ph
...which is why I suggested mixing it with distilled water. After a couple years of testing mine, I gave up when I noticed that clear water=good star san and cloudy water=bad star san.
Cloudy does not equal bad in all cases. Mine is cloudy the second I mix it if using tap water. The ONLY way to determine its effectiveness is to test its ph level.
Handsaw
Well-Known Member
What do you use to test the ph of the solution? I bought some test strips at my lhbs but they only go down to 4.6.
I've kept some Starsan around for more than a month and it was fine. Be careful how you store it though. I used a milk jug and it ate a hole right through it. Made a mess in my cabinet.
True, if you use tap water. In my experience, if you use distilled water cloudy always equals bad, and clear always equals good.
And yes, you should store it in a glass container. Pickup a 2 gal carboy sometime, they're perfect.
