Starsan

Sorry all, I am having some first brew worries.

When using starsan, I am planning on filling up my primary with the 1oz to 5gal mixture and soaking my other things in the bucket. My question is, once I reach in and grab the items out are they still considered sanitized because the starsan kills the bacteria on my fingers, or is there a special procedure to pull stuff out of the bucket?

Thanks

Just rinse your hands in the Starsan before you grab anything, and you will be set. If your hands are dirty enough that it doesn't kill anything, then you need to go wash your hands

Thanks for the quick reply! :rockin:

I'm so anal with sanitation, the I sometimes use rubber gloves dipped in Starsan before I handle hoses that will be in a keg or fermenter.

Heh, I was like that for the longest time, but I have noticed here lately that as long as it is cleaned really well, I don't stress out over the sanitizing as much. What that means is that instead of being Captain Anal, I am prolly sanitizing like everyone "should".

Drunkensatyr said:

What that means is that instead of being Captain Anal, I am prolly sanitizing like everyone "should".

Click to expand...

Or like everyone "does". I work in a molecular bio lab, and sanitize for me means sterile, I know I am way overkill with everything, but I have gotten much less so...in fact, I have been doing dumber and dumber stuff and haven't had any contamination yet (last week after racking an IPA, I had 2oz of whole hops in a bowl, trying to figure out how to get them in the carboy, put a non-sanitized funnel in the neck of the carboy, dumped in the hops...no go, all stuck, so I grabbed a nearby raking cane (again, not sanitized) and jammed them all in....looks fine.

in extract brewing, what temp does the wort usually boil at after adding the extract? i have a reading of 202 with no boil and wonder if i am stirring too much...

and how often do i want to stir after hops are added?

Sugar causes boiling point elevation. It isn't by much ~2 degrees f so you still have to reach 212 to boil.

depends on your altitude...bout 200 here...

Sorry, always lived at sea level. Keep forgetting that not everyone has 400% humidity and 115+ heat in the summer

its two hours long, but this archive of a brewing network radio show had teh inventor of star-san on.
http://www.thebrewingnetwork.com/ar...ar=&to_date_day=&to_date_month=&to_date_year=

amazingly useful information there...like why you don't have to worry about star san bubbles affecting beer head retention or flavor.

I put star san in a spray bottle. you don't need 5 gallons of solution to sanitize a primary. just get all the surfaces wet with star san for about 60 seconds, and you are set.

last tip, is always put stuff together wet, with your hands wet with sanitizer. anything on them will be killed accordingly, keeping you sanitized.

for me, a slow boil starts right at 212

for me, a slow boil starts right at 212