Hey you! You're using too much StarSan...

Yes you are aren't you! Admit it now and stop wasting it.

olllllo said:

Yes you are aren't you! Admit it now and stop wasting it.

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What makes you so sure?

Quit yelling at me pa!

I've read that you only really need to use a spray bottle to
coat your equipment and that making soaking quantities is
a waste.

No more star san hats???

6mL in 1 gallon. Lasts about a month for me. If I was not careless and let crud and bugs get in there, it could last longer.

Maybe he tried to buy some today, and couldn't...maybe no there is an international starsan shortage....

People who waste starsan probably drive huge SUV's as well....

Beerrific said:

6mL in 1 gallon. Lasts about a month for me. If I was not careless and let crud and bugs get in there, it could last longer.

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And here I was thinking I was the only one who gets crud in their star san bucket..

My StarSan last forever. Seriously. I am probably going to need to buy some soon, but I bought my last bottle in May....of 2007. I keep some in a spray bottle that I use for most applications and a 5 gallon bucket with a lid that I keep random parts in, that I change every few months or so.

You guys don't do StarSan shooters while brewing your beer? Mmmm, tart and delicious!

Revvy said:

Maybe he tried to buy some today, and couldn't...maybe no there is an international starsan shortage....

People who waste starsan probably drive huge SUV's as well....

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Actually, i thought it was clear coat safe, I just washed the Sub with it.

You mean I'm not allowed to saniteze the kitchen with it? SWMBO has huge fear of E-coli re-infecting daughter (once contracted, you do become more susceptible to future infections).

Ok, I'll stop killing the bathroom bugs after I fumigate in there.

Damn, life's just less without free use of Starsan!

I bet money you're using more idophor than you need to also!

TeufelBrew said:

You mean I'm not allowed to saniteze the kitchen with it? SWMBO has huge fear of E-coli re-infecting daughter (once contracted, you do become more susceptible to future infections).

Ok, I'll stop killing the bathroom bugs after I fumigate in there.

Damn, life's just less without free use of Starsan!

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So I'm not the only one who has a spray bottle of sanitizer by their sink...actually I have two, one w/ starsan and the other with bulk TSC iodophor.

OK, i have to ask. How much do you use to sanitize a carboy?

Revvy said:

Maybe he tried to buy some today, and couldn't...maybe no there is an international starsan shortage....

People who waste starsan probably drive huge SUV's as well....

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Hey, I resemble that comment!!!

- 2 gallons of starsan every brew day
- Yukon Denali 6.0L

jimba009 said:

OK, i have to ask. How much do you use to sanitize a carboy?

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I mix up maybe no more than 2.5 gallons..usually if I am just doing a fermenter and nothing else, I mix up a gallon and swish.

When star San gets cloudy that means the PH is off. Doesn't it have to be below a PH of 2 or something? I think if you add a little more Star San to the solution and check the PH you can keep a bucket of it indefinitely.

Revvy said:

People who waste starsan probably drive huge SUV's as well....

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or Jeeps! Pot calling the kettle black! ; )

Legally StartSan has to say 1-2 minutes of wet contact time.

Reality 30 seconds of wet contact time. Use the foaming to your advantage.

Carboys use enough to get them wet and re-use the solution if the ph is below 3.

Soaking parts with nooks and crannies: make just enough to submerge and re-use the solution if the ph is below 3.

This past brewday I mixed up 1/2 gallon of iodaphor solution to sanitize two better bottles. Even that was more than necessary.

Jolly McStanson said:

When star San gets cloudy that means the PH is off. Doesn't it have to be below a PH of 2 or something? I think if you add a little more Star San to the solution and check the PH you can keep a bucket of it indefinitely.

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Cloudy doesn't necessarily mean it's off. My water is so hard you can almost walk on it and it makes StarSan cloudy right away. Ph testing is the way to check.

olllllo, I'll use as much as I want, whenever I want so there. (Usually 2.5 gallons for a brew day because it's easy to mix that amount)

I made no SUV comments.

Make as much as you want. The waste comes in not using distilled water to make it and not re-using it.

olllllo said:

Make as much as you want. The waste comes in not using distilled water to make it and not re-using it.

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I agree completely. I just haven't gotten to the store to get some distilled in a while.

Hmm... I can pay $1/bottle for distilled and make 2-3 gallons that'll last for maybe 6 months, OR I can make 2.5 gal each brew day and go through $10 of star-san in like 3 years instead of 10. I don't think I'd save any money by using the distilled water. Star-san isn't expensive enough to worry about saving it forever.

Revvy said:

Maybe he tried to buy some today, and couldn't...maybe no there is an international starsan shortage....

People who waste starsan probably drive huge SUV's as well....

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Hey i dont drive an SUV, its a Mustang, thank you very much, but if it makes you feel better, i dont get better then 15mpg in it damn autobhan and your lack of speed limit making me drive too fast. :rockin:

dagamore said:

Hey i dont drive an SUV, its a Mustang, thank you very much, but if it makes you feel better, i dont get better then 15mpg in it damn autobhan and your lack of speed limit making me drive too fast. :rockin:

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Can you even get starsan in Germany??? Or is that why there's a shortage, like most everything it's getting shipped to overseas...

Hegh said:

Hmm... I can pay $1/bottle for distilled and make 2-3 gallons that'll last for maybe 6 months, OR I can make 2.5 gal each brew day and go through $10 of star-san in like 3 years instead of 10. I don't think I'd save any money by using the distilled water. Star-san isn't expensive enough to worry about saving it forever.

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How much do you make when you rack, test a sample, make a starter?

The original premise is also in the "using too much".

I think that the big soak of the entire carboy breeds a false sense of security.
It leads one to perhaps be lax on the cleaning, thinking that a big soak will fix it.

It won't.

I always filled up the carboy just because i didn't know better. Maybe it is the noob in me, but i sanitize everything i can.

I bath in it everyday. 30 second shower, can't beat that! And if I'm in a hurry, sponge bath with a spray bottle!

As part of the bulk grain buy my local home brew club did, the company shipping the grain was selling 2 gallon containers of star san for some ridiculously cheap price like $30. That is enough star san to last 2 lifetimes, but with so much on had why not soak with it.

The biggest waste of star san for me was using it to eat the paint off of two cases of red stripe bottles.... HA HA HA HA HA

olllllo said:

How much do you make when you rack, test a sample, make a starter?

The original premise is also in the "using too much".

I think that the big soak of the entire carboy breeds a false sense of security.
It leads one to perhaps be lax on the cleaning, thinking that a big soak will fix it.

It won't.

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I have not made any starters, but for taking samples I just used my spray bottle. And actually, last time I did apfelwein, I only made 2 quarts. One quart went into the better bottle and got shaken up for 30 seconds (basically all turned into foam), and the other half soaked my airlock.

I'm guessing I won't need any more than that for racking, since I can spray the outside of the autosiphon, and I can put the end in the measuring cup and pump it through the hose into the target carboy.

It's just for brewing and especially bottling that I make a larger batch. If only I could plan things out so I bottle and brew on the same day...

I'm guilty too! I've been using 2.5 gallons every brew day... and now it's all gone... And the worst part is that I screwed up when ordering more and got their other sanitizer, Saniclean.... Guess I'll be using that for a year or so. I actually liked the foam and the killer bubbles! I'm going to miss them...

Oh yeah, and I drive a F-150 that gets about 13 mpg in the city.... Which is also why I ride a motorcycle for a commuter vehicle.

100 + batches and have never bought/borrowed/stolen or otherwise used starsan.

Marketing ploy and a waste of money.

Mild bleach water and a hot rinse for me. Old school.

Can't imagine spraying a chemical on my brewing equipment and not rinsing it off.

Wait. I don't understand. How can you use too much? It takes so much of that thick stuff to fill up an entire carboy, I can only brew once a year! It said contact sanitizer, right? I also like to make sure it contacts the air, the empty space, so that when the sides are clean no bacteria falls out of the air and contaminates them.

BierMuncher said:

100 + batches and have never bought/borrowed/stolen or otherwise used starsan.

Marketing ploy and a waste of money.

Mild bleach water and a hot rinse for me. Old school.

Can't imagine spraying a chemical on my brewing equipment and not rinsing it off.

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Do you also spray windex on all your wounds? Mo' tussin! MO' TUSSIN!!!!

The guy who got me into brewing said pretty much the same thing. Oh, no, how can you leave it on there, it just doesn't seem right! I'm sure new "chemicals" have scared many an old codger throughout the industrial revolution, and well before, too. You'd think that, given how many people use it, you'd have heard something about it screwing up beer before now, eh?

Well, I tend to trust the chemists, and the big brewers too...and if you've ever listened to the interviews that various homebrewing guru's have done with the guys at Five Star, you know that they really do the whole homebrewing market thing almost out of a sense of charity to the community, because they don't make hardly any money from it, not compared to the big guys. As for it being a "waste of money", a big jug of it, which costs me $15, lasts at least a year. I've been brewing for over 3 years and am on just my third bottle of it. Yes, when you're dumping it out after every use, it's expensive, but not when you reuse it properly.

Definitely not a waste of money. My bottle has lasted me since May of '07. I would imagine bleach would end up being more expensive.

just curious, is Starsan, at our concentration levels considered septic system-safe?

I never looked into it, or read/heard about that.


Could periodic bleach (add vinegar, BM!) discharge also possibly upset a septic system?

I was talking to an electrician, and conversation turned to septic systems, and he indicated antimicrobial soaps are starting to create problems, by slowing down natural processes. Could that be true? (don't we have chemists on board, here?)

Evan! said:

...I'm sure new "chemicals" have scared many an old codger throughout the industrial revolution, and well before, too...

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Evan!, I figured someone would bite...I didn't recon it would be you.

Honestly, if I had it (starsan), I'd probably use it. But with a double basin shop sink I can keep one basin filled with a mild bleach solution then rinse everything with 135 degree water and let it drip dry.

I swap out that rinse basin water about every other day so a generic $1.50 jug of bleach at about 1/2 a cup per sink load goes a long way.

Even the ugly keggle gets a good bleach wash and hot rinse, then upside down for a drip dry.