99% ethanol Sanitizer?

Hi..Doreen here I just start all over again. I am out of sanitizer around and a storekeeper recommend me 99% Ethanol sanitizer. He say this will work fine as it spray on and let it dry and everything fine. But the 4th day now my ferment is kind of blur and real cloudy white + yellow. Still fermenting with a 5mm sediment floating. I ferment it at 21-24 degree C. Is that going to be fine? The smell is still fine and no sour smell on it. I am not sure is this going to be fine? This time the fermentation is kind of slow and there is a thick sediment below slowly thin down. Never see this happen before. Fail again?

Please advise. Thank you very much.

Your description of the fermentation sounds fine, but it's still a little too soon to tell if there is any kind of infection. Right now the yeast is still too active to be able to notice anything else. Give it another week or two before you start to panic. And if you don't smell or taste an infection then, I think you're okay. While we usually don't recommend ethanol for sanitizing, I think this is probably mostly due to the cost, which is much higher than StarSan or Iodphor or bleach. I would assume that ethanol, in conjunction with good cleaning practices, would work well as a sanitizer.

Captain Damage: Thanks. Guess I am too worried about my brew I can't find any other sanitizer around as clorox is not recommended. So the shopkeeper told me this 99% Ethanol is best suit and it's the one and only food grade sanitizer this make me no choice and give it a try. Hopefully it will works fine... Thanks again. Glad to hear that.

Doreen

Probably okay to use in a pinch, but be extremely careful spraying ethanol when there's an open flame under your pot ...

Ethanol at 99% is a very poor sanitizer. Water is required along with the alcohol to "deactivate" cell membranes which is why isopropol alcohol is widely available at a 70% concentration.

MuchoGusto said:

Ethanol at 99% is a very poor sanitizer. Water is required along with the alcohol to "deactivate" cell membranes which is why isopropol alcohol is widely available at a 70% concentration.

Click to expand...

MuchoGusto is correct about the 70% concentration. However, while working in a cell culture lab, I (and others) had ocassionally swapped out isopropyl alcohol for ethanol with no problem.

JonM: Thanks for the advise
MuchoGusto & Quadrupled: isopropyl alcohol is not food grade (rubbing alcohol). Is it really suitable to sanitizing my equipment including fermenter? Thanks

Doreen

TheBrewers said:

Captain Damage: Thanks. Guess I am too worried about my brew I can't find any other sanitizer around as clorox is not recommended. So the shopkeeper told me this 99% Ethanol is best suit and it's the one and only food grade sanitizer this make me no choice and give it a try. Hopefully it will works fine... Thanks again. Glad to hear that.

Doreen

Click to expand...

Unscented clorox bleach is fine. Use a few tablespoonsfull in 5 gallons. The biggest issue with bleach is that you need to rinse it off with hot water after use.

I keep all my fermenters filled with a mild bleach solution when not in use.

Calder said:

Unscented clorox bleach is fine. Use a few tablespoonsfull in 5 gallons. The biggest issue with bleach is that you need to rinse it off with hot water after use.

I keep all my fermenters filled with a mild bleach solution when not in use.

Click to expand...

Are you able to get the chlorine smell out of them easily when time to ferment?

tre9er said:

Are you able to get the chlorine smell out of them easily when time to ferment?

Click to expand...

No problem. It is a very low strength bleach solution; literally a few tablespoons in 5+ gallons. The key is to rinse well with very hot water. I use hot tap water, add a couple of pints, swirl it around and empty ...... repeat a couple of times.

I use idophor for everything else.

TheBrewers said:

JonM: Thanks for the advise
MuchoGusto & Quadrupled: isopropyl alcohol is not food grade (rubbing alcohol). Is it really suitable to sanitizing my equipment including fermenter? Thanks

Doreen

Click to expand...

If I was in a real pinch, I'd consider it. However, I'd say skip it if the bleach is available (or StarSan or Iodophor). Keep in mind that most drug store ethanol (all that I have seen) is somehow "denatured" to make it undrinkable (i.e. addition of some fouling agent).

TheBrewers said:

JonM: Thanks for the advise
MuchoGusto & Quadrupled: isopropyl alcohol is not food grade (rubbing alcohol). Is it really suitable to sanitizing my equipment including fermenter? Thanks

Doreen

Click to expand...

I have seen isopropyl cause cracking or damage to acrylic racking canes. All the acrylic equipment at work has big signs saying "DO NOT USE ALCOHOL ON THE ACRYLIC". And despite this most of them have significant damage because of people ignoring this.

Calder: Thanks for the idea. Thank you.
tre9er: Appreciate your opinion there.

Doreen

Quadrupled: Thanks for the advise
postal_penguin: Thank you so much

Cheers...

Doreen

Just to clarify someone else's post (always a great idea, right?), I think the point about the 70% isopropyl vs. 99% ethanol is that you should dilute your ethanol to ~70%, not that you should use isopropyl. And to second that, 70% is supposed to be the magic concentration (at least from when I used to cultivate mushrooms, which required a much higher sanitation standard).

Diluted ethanol is a good sanitizer, but, y'know, crazy flammable, so careful now. Do not treat isopropyl as a no-rinse sanitizer in the preparation of food, it takes a relatively small amount to make you very sick, if you ingest it. Try not to breathe in too much of either (though if you have to pick, ethanol is less dangerous to inhale).