Simple Slip Up...

With big implications...

When brewing I used B-Brite Cleanser for a sanitizer. I have Brewed only a few times and used One Step then. It never even occurred to my that it wasn't a sanitizer until today. Unfortunately the beer is in the bottles now. (I used 1 step to sanitize the bottles). The directions say to rinse after CLEANSING. I am pretty sure I rinsed pretty well. Even though I thought it was odd to rinse after sanitizing. Having worked in food service as a kid we would always air dry after sanitizing.

The fermentation was normal enough. I tasted the beer before bottling and it was a little bitter. I am pretty sure the beer is OK (so to speak) though I have no idea if it will taste OK.

What concerns me the most is it looks like B-Brite is toxic. It says to lots of drink water and call a physician in case of ingestion. Man I don't want that in my beer even in minuscule amounts.

Funny in retrospect I was so focused on following the recipe to a tee I never bothered to check that I was using the proper product. (Is that similar to stepping over a dollar to pick up a dime).

(Nuts... I am sure I won't be the only time I make bad beer however I wanted to get off to a good start.)

How well did you rinse? I've never used anything but bleach and StarSan, so I can't speak much to the B-Brite issue. But you're saying, if I read correctly, that you "cleaned" the fermenter(s) with B-brite, and never sanitized them. If you rinsed it, you're probably gonna be okay, because of the high dilution that you're dealing with on 5-gal batches. I wouldn't worry about toxicity as much as I'd be on the lookout for infected batches. Given that it tasted fine going into the bottles, you're probably just fine. The minute amount of b-brite that may be in there is probably not enough to really do anything.

Oddly enough I don't think the beer was infected. Nothing odd about fermenting (smell, color, foam Krusen ?). I took the blowoff (off) after 3 days and fermentation was done at a week exactly.

You'll be fine then. Let us know if you die, though.

I feel a little better... the dish soap I use has the same warning.

I did the same thing on my 3rd batch. The guy at the Homebrew shop told me it was a sanitizer and I didn't know any better. I did rinse it off as well (I do that with my One step as well because I don't like the idea of any chemicals in my beer).

My 3rd batch was a barleywine that kicked ass. I've got about 6 bombers left so that means I've gone through a case and a half...now if you ask my wife it has caused damage, she may tell you differently but I can't notice any negative effects.