Sanitizer

I'm looking to make a good home made sanitizer got any suggestion? I see a lot of web sites telling me I can use 1/4 teaspoon of Bleach to one gallon of water. Any thoughts on that.

thanks

I agree; star San is the way to go. I love the no rinse factor, and knowing it acts like a tactical nuke to all the little microbes that could possibly get into the beer.

Rinsing any sanitizing solution off my equipment never really made sense to me.

Star San works great as mentioned, however, to the OP's question, if all you have is Bleach, then use it by all means. Just make sure to rinse rinse rinse before your beer touches it. Bleach actually works to sterilize your equipment and not just sanitize. So if that is all you can get, DO IT!

related, but slightly off topic - apologies in advance.

i've seen on youtube, and read both on here and other places that some people use heat to sanitize certain parts of their equipment. what temperature would be necessary to consider something heat sanitized?

unionrdr said:

Even diluted bleach has to be rinsed a few times to get it off the surface. Just get a small bottle of starsan,it only takes 3/4oz to a gallon of water,& it's no rinse. It also breaks down into yeast nutrient after awhile with what little coats the fermenter or inside bottles.
It's a wet contact sanitizer that most everyone use on here. It's easy to make & use,& works really quick & well.

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It's actually 1 oz to 5 gallons of water so that makes it even cheaper. Also, you can reuse it. Starsan makes brewing so much easier, it's totally worth every penny.

Or, you could just boil everything

flushdrew42 said:

related, but slightly off topic - apologies in advance.

i've seen on youtube, and read both on here and other places that some people use heat to sanitize certain parts of their equipment. what temperature would be necessary to consider something heat sanitized?

Click to expand...

Boiling should work for basic sanitation. 20 mins at 212F. If you want it 'sterized' you need 250F and I forget how long. Autoclave, etc. glass and such could be put in an oven for 350F and besterilzed, until they are taken out. (the dust in teh air carries yeast and bacteria).

If you read up a little on what is it that bacteria and other creepy little "bad" guys like
and don't like to eat and the environment they like to live in and cannot live in, you could possibly make a "home made" sanitizer but that can be a little tricky.

Personally I would go with either star-san or even iodophor as they are tried and true and not as toxic or potentially dangerous as bleach. Yes bleach is cheap but it has it's hazards and MUST be rinsed very well as already stated.

$20 bucks for a large bottle of star-san that will last a very long time or $10-$15 worth of bleach over the same amount of time as bleach has a limited shelf life!

Just my thoughts though!

Good luck

I use a pressure cooker for all of my yeast handling and culturing equipment. It works really well, and is quite easy to use.

Boiling of course works, but my fear with that is once the equipment cools or it has been used it must be boiled again. This just seems like a lot of trouble.

As far as homemade sanitizers, I'm at a loss. I don't know of too many food grade chemicals that would be safe if not rinsed.