Starsan--WTF!?!?

I use Starsan as my preferred sanitizer, and have had great success with it, not losing one batch to infection since I switched to it. For Christmas, I received a nice growler with a flip top and red rubber gasket. I thoroughly cleaned it, and thought that storing starsan solution in it would mean that when I was ready to fill it, all I would need to do is give it a good shake, and it would be clean and sanitized, ready to accept beer. A couple of months had passed since filling it with starsan solution, and to my surprise, the rubber gasket and flip top was covered in what looked like mold. Was I naive to think that a clean growler filled with a sanitizer would mean that nothing would be growing in it?!?!

Starsan goes inert after a time. If there was crud that the starsan couldn't sanitize before becoming useless then it actually becomes nutrients for nasty, or happy things to grow in.

Best practice would be to first use a cleaner, like oxyclean, then use starsan to sanitize.

Strange...but honestly, starsan is cheap enough where I don't "store" it ever. 1/2 oz for racking/brew days and that it. I know some people store it and it works out fine, but whatever you feel comfortable with is fine. When your ready to fill your growler, just rinse it out to get the dust out, swirl a little SS in it and you're good to go. Plus, its like 1/10th of an oz to thoroughly "swish" out a growler...so that's like what, .25 cents in SS.

starsan is a wet contact sanitizer. Once the area is dry, it's prone to infection again.

yep.. store nothing wet for a long time... leave it open so it dries.. then sanitize right before filling.

Rinse the growler and put it away.

When it's time to fill it, THEN you give it a sanitizing swish.

Starsan is degraded by UV light...at least the commerical stuff we use (Starzene) does rather quickly.

Star-Xene is chlorine dioxide which will degrade when exposed to light.

StarSan is an acid anionic which doesn't care at all if light hits it.

Two completely different products and chemicals.

...bubbles

Wayne1 said:

Star-Xene is chlorine dioxide which will degrade when exposed to light.

StarSan is an acid anionic which doesn't care at all if light hits it.

Two completely different products and chemicals.

Click to expand...

Right on, thanks for clarifying

Growlers - my cleaning procedure is to oxiclean soak, rinse and store upside down, open. When needed, spray some starsan inside swirl & fill. OP problem was introducing moisture that couldn't drain away.

+1 as stated before, I make like a qt or two of star san at a time to swish around in a keg to sanitize...takes only 1/10 or 1/20th of an ounce...an eight or 16 ounce bottle lasts forever.

I stored some flip-tops with Camden solution once. After about 3 months, sure enough, there was some mold in there. I didn't think too much about it. I think everything has a half life, but the bottles were never opened, so it makes me wonder.

I chalk it up to the difference between "sanitize" and "sterilize".

I'm wondering now if an acid sanitizer is all that great an idea for brewing. Beer and wort are also acidic. Lifeforms that can thrive in beer stand a better chance of surviving StarSan's phosphoric acid than something slimy feeling like Carlson's Easy Clean. As an anecdotal data point, I sometimes end up with floating rafts of unpleasantness in my secondary, but my wife swears by Easy Clean and her brews come out clean. (It could be just our sanitary habits differ, but I think not. Watching her work makes me cringe and have to leave the room.)

Starsan pH is MUCH lower than the pH of a beer. Most beers are closer to 4.5 pH or higher. Starsan is closer to 1. Remember that's that each pH lower is 10x the hydrogen ions than the number before. So a sour beer at 3 ph is fairly sour and starsan is 100 times more acidic basically.

I keep Starsa in a 3QT water jug from Walmart. Mixed with DISTILLED water, so it won't just go bad. If I don't use distilled water, my highly alkaline water will raise the pH too high and prevent it from doing it's job.

I haven't seen ANY signs of anything growing in that jug and I've been using it for over 2 years now.

If your growler was CLEAN, and if you used starsan in it and made full contact, then it "should" have killed everything and kept it from coming back.

Best thing for a growler is to clean, starsan, and let dry completely, even the cap. Then when you need to use it, apply more starsan and let the excess drip out.

The guys over at www.basicbrewing.com interviewed people from the makers of both Starsan, and the makers of Iodofor back in 2007. It's worth a listen, they talk a lot about contact time, dilution and storage.

Personally I only store my Starsan in cases where I might brew today AND tomorrow. More then a few days, I just make a new batch.

Spamdog

The starsan in the growler may well have still been good, but the mold on the top/gasket was probably from condensation.

The water in the starsan solution evaporates then condenses on the lid/top/whatever. Because the starsan itself is unable to evaporate (at normal temps anyway) it is left behind. That water condensation is a great place for mold to grow.