Star San Questions

Greetings to everyone...

I'm new to using Star San for sanitizing and I need to ask a couple questions regarding its use. This product wasn't around when I home brewed in the past...

I'm going to be bottling my first batch of beer in over 8 years tomorrow. I'm planning to use the star san to sanitize my bottles, caps, bottling bucket, bottle filler, and tubing. If I understand correctly, I don't need to rinse anything after soaking it in Star San. Is this correct? Will the bottle caps give me a good seal if they are not dry?

Yes, star-san is fine to use when wet. In fact, it is supposed to be used while still wet, since it's sanitizing as long as it's wet. Be advised though, that you may have a lot of foam in the bottles and covering the tubing. It's fine, of course- the foam shows you that the star san is still there, but it's a little disconcerting to see a gob of foam sitting in your gear. Still, don't rinse it! We say "don't fear the foam" around here.

Thanks for the info... the foam was quite intimidating for me when I used this stuff to sanitize my brewing equipment on brew day and when I racked to my secondary. In my previous days of home brewing, we were using a very mild bleach solution for sanitizing that required rinsing.

I'm cleaning all my bottles today and I'll sanitize them right before I bottle tomorrow, and should be able to sip another home made beer in 2 or 3 weeks I'm stoked!

YooperBrew said:

Yes, star-san is fine to use when wet. In fact, it is supposed to be used while still wet, since it's sanitizing as long as it's wet. Be advised though, that you may have a lot of foam in the bottles and covering the tubing. It's fine, of course- the foam shows you that the star san is still there, but it's a little disconcerting to see a gob of foam sitting in your gear. Still, don't rinse it! We say "don't fear the foam" around here.

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I read somewhere that if you add star san after you have already poured in the water, you don't get as much foam