Shelf life of prepared Starsan

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philosofool

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I recently decided to try Starsan instead of Iodaphor as my sanitizer. I would like to rack a beer tonight and I'm brewing tomorrow. If I mix 5 gallons of Starsan tonight, will it still be viable tomorrow?
 
Most likely.

I have highly alkaline water, so I always mix my starsan with distilled water so I can store it. Otherwise it will quickly go bad as the pH rises.

StarSan is effective at 3.6 pH and lower IIRC. As long as your water doesn't cause it to drop below this point you should be good. You could mix it a little strong to be sure.
 
Oh, StarSan will get cloudy when it starts to go bad too. I don't know the chemistry behind that, but I know if I don't use distilled water my StarSan will get cloudy in a day or so.
 
StarSan with distilled water can last for a crazy amount of time.
I mixed up 5 gallons that I store in a corny keg. 6 months later, it was still clear and reading 2.3 ph.
I finally made a fresh batch just because.
 
I've been using the same bucket of Starsan since September. I never quite trusted when people said it would last a long time, but then I ran out of Starsan and haven't bought a new bottle. So, I have forced myself to keep using what I've got. Haven't had any problems yet. Maybe after the holidays I'll get around to buying a new bottle of the stuff.
 
When I mix starsan with my tap water and I get about a month out of it. It clouds up in about a minute or so but I test the PH before each use to make sure it's good.
 
BullGator said:
Starsan using tap water is good for a min of 2 weeks.
Click to expand...

Not with any assurance, as "tap water" varies too widely. The only way to know for sure is to test it with a ph meter.

My current batch was mixed with distilled water back in July, with fresh gallons added over time. It still measures well below ph 3...

Cheers!
 

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