How much should star san foam? (i'm not getting any foam...)

This is my first time using star san. I mixed 6ml (right above the 5ml line) with a 1 gallon jug of distilled water. filled my sprayer. tried spraying something...and say almost no foam.

There was a little bit, but it slid off the the bottle I sprayed and the foam bubbles dissappeared very quickly.

Is this normal? When I spray the outside of something, like a normal glass bottle, should I see a crazy amount of foam that will stick to the glass?

6ml is plenty for 1 gallon. The spray nozzle knocks down a lot of the foam I've found. Even if there's no foam don't worry it's still doing it's job.

If you shake the bottle does it foam up a lot inside?

Star San mostly foams up if you add water on top of it. Like if you put one ounce in a bucket and fill 5 gallons of water on top of it you will get a lot of foam. If you instead fill the 5 gallons of water first and then add the Star San you will get no foaming - at least I don't. Not sure about the spray bottle thing but I wouldn't care about it. And yes, like Earwig said, if you agitate it a lot it does foam.


Rev.

earwig said:

If you shake the bottle does it foam up a lot inside?

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+1 this is the question

In my experience, you don't get foam unless you agitate it. When I'm using my vinator with starsan, it foams like crazy. If I shake my spray bottle, same thing. When I add ~6ml to a 1gal distilled jug or when I use the starsan solution in the spray bottle, it doesn't foam.

A lot.

Why do you want foam?

sjbeerman said:

Why do you want foam?

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Don't think he wanted foam per se, but rather wanted to be sure it was working correct since so many people talk about the foam.


Rev.

The foam is helpful to covering some stuff where the liquid doesn't always get. It's not all that useful IMO, but not seeing it can be a sign of maybe not mixing it properly, which is why the OP posted I think.

I see very little foam when spraying from a bottle. Mixing with water and shaking in a carboy makes a lot more foam that sticks around until the carboy gets filled with beer and the foam comes pushing out the top.

I put an additional amount of star san (less than 1ml) in the bottle sprayer and it really foamed up when I shook it. And when I poured some solution into my carboy it REALLY foamed up.

Also, I didn't want foam. But I've never used star san before and the one thing you always hear about star san is the foam, so I was thrown off when I didn't see any after spraying a couple of objects.

Thanks for all the help

Where I get a lot of foam is when I put, say a gallon of mixed star san, into a keg or carboy and shake. Why a gallon? I like my star san to be fresh, since I don't have a pH test kit to test its strength. Mixing up 5 gallon just to sanitize a keg or carboy seems like such a waste.

When sprayed from a spray bottle, I get little or no foam.

TRainH2o said:

Mixing up 5 gallon just to sanitize a keg or carboy seems like such a waste.

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Tru dat!

a splash into the carboy and get everything wet for a minute or so, then time to fill with sweet wort!

I do keep 5 gal mixed in a spare corny for racking canes, tubing, etc - but as long as it's clear to the bottom, it's pretty long-lasting. Cloudy - I dump it and start over.