Need a few opinions on how sanitary is sanitary?

Looking for a few opionions here..

If I sanitize my equipment(racking cane, siphon tube, hydrometer,etc) and set it on a sanitzed drying rack, can I leave it sit there for a few days and then use it and not worry about airborne things getting on the equipment?

Thanks!

No, it should be sanitized when you use it.

I wouldn't. The sanitizer I use, star-san, is a "wet contact" sanitizer which means it is only sanitized while still wet (if I understand correctly). A few minutes is fine, but days? No, I wouldn't chance it. There are plenty of wild yeast floating around in the air in my home, along with lactobacillus and other bacteria.

When you sanitize, you don't kill 100% of the organisms to begin with, but enough of them to be "sanitary". The remaining ones would have plenty of time to recolonize, even if no new wild yeast and bacteria floated in.

Yeast are tough organisms, and a healthy yeast culture can out-compete most other organisms.

HOWEVER,

Why make it harder? You can mix up a no-rinse sanitizer like Star-san or iodophor in a quart spray bottle, and mist/schpritz your gear and let it sit for a minute or two prior to use. A quart goes a long way in a spray bottle.

Yeast are carried about the world on dust, you see. Allowing your equipment to get dust on it makes it not sanitized anymore. No-rinse sanitizers, applied just before use, are the perfect answer to this problems.

A fourth vote for no.

To put it bluntly, No.

Most of the sanitzers we use are No rinse/wet contact sanitizers. They are literally double edged swords. Literally. They kill two ways. They kill everything on the object prior to sanitizing, and then as long as they are still wet they form a sanitizer barrier that kills everything that comes into contact with object.

If you let the sanitizer dry any micro organism that comes in contact with the sanitized object, rather than being killed by it, makes the object no longer sanitzed.

You really want to sanitize right at the time you are using the thing you are sanitizing.

I put a lot of good info and tips of effectively using sanitizers in here. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/sanitizer-question-54932/

i read earlier today on this website (actually it was a link from this website to hbt wiki page) about sanitizing - you should sanatize everything no longer then an hour in advance. you want it to be sanitized and dried right before you use it.

HomelessWook said:

i read earlier today on this website (actually it was a link from this website to hbt wiki page) about sanitizing - you should sanatize everything no longer then an hour in advance. you want it to be sanitized and dried right before you use it.

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If you are using Starsan or iodophor, you don't want it to dry, again for the two-sided efficacy I mentioned above.

ah i see,

i was reading about using a dishwasher and no sanitizer for sanitizing bottles - probably the mix up in advice i just gave/received.

i just bought some iodophor today and was going to use it for my next brew - going to fill up a cooler with water and santizer and just let my stuff soak in at and pull it out as i needed it - i thought if it was wet no biggie but it should be dry - i'm glad you posted that.

Iodophor is a great sanitizer! I use it occasionally myself. Keep in mind that it doesn't last all that long. So, you can use it to sanitize but use up the mixture within a day. It doesn't "keep" the way other sanitizers do when mixed.

Iodophor and star-san are fine to use while wet. Don't allow it to dry.

Also, keep in mind that sterilizing and sanitizing are different. Sterilizing kills ALL the germs (think operating room). Sanitizing kills MOST of them. Your goal is to be as sanitary as possible.

Like I said in an earlier post, you won't kill all of the wild yeast and bacteria on any item you sanitize. But since the yeast culture will "infect" your beer right after brewing, it will outcompete any other organism if you've sanitized properly. That's what you're doing when you sanitize. You just give your yeast the proper start, ahead of any other nasties that will be around. By the time the yeast are done, you'll have alcohol in your brew and it would be very tough for any other organisms to gain a foothold.

Great, thanks for all the info everyone!
I bought a gallon of Iodophor at the local farm store and have a commercial dispenser that mixes it between 12.5-25 ppm.
So, after sanitizing carboy, I put it on a carboy dryer and there is some foam that will take an hour or so to drain/disspate.
A good idea to let the foam dissipate??

kabrew said:

Great, thanks for all the info everyone!
I bought a gallon of Iodophor at the local farm store and have a commercial dispenser that mixes it between 12.5-25 ppm.
So, after sanitizing carboy, I put it on a carboy dryer and there is some foam that will take an hour or so to drain/disspate.
A good idea to let the foam dissipate??

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It doesn't have to be totally free of foam...in fact with starsan we say not to fear the foam. I too have farm grade iodophor and it foams almost as much as starsan, so I treat it as such.

I'm really curious about the commercial dispenser thing you have, got a link or a picture of it?

I bought a gallon of Iodophor at the local farm store and have a commercial dispenser that mixes it between 12.5-25 ppm.

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sounds like a dispenser at my work that takes warm(or cold) water out the faucet and mixes it directly with sanitizer and shoots it out a hose - sounds like a good setup you have

its used in lots of big kitchens in the food business.

Revvy, the dispenser works exactly as HomelessWook describes it.

I'm in the restaurant biz and have had a lot of food safety training and know quite a bit about chlorine and quat based sanitizers, but have never worked with Iodophor. I know a lot of bars use it, but we use quats to sanitize glassware in our bars.
Anyway, the dispenser I have was a freebie from a company I've dealt with for years. I know the service guy pretty well and he even installed and calibrated it for me.
It mixes cool water with the concentrate and the solution comes out of a hose that can be used to fill a sink, bucket, carboy, etc. Sure beats measuring!

thanks again for all the help....time to rack my dunkel to the carboy!

kabrew said:

Revvy, the dispenser works exactly as HomelessWook describes it.

I'm in the restaurant biz and have had a lot of food safety training and know quite a bit about chlorine and quat based sanitizers, but have never worked with Iodophor. I know a lot of bars use it, but we use quats to sanitize glassware in our bars.
Anyway, the dispenser I have was a freebie from a company I've dealt with for years. I know the service guy pretty well and he even installed and calibrated it for me.
It mixes cool water with the concentrate and the solution comes out of a hose that can be used to fill a sink, bucket, carboy, etc. Sure beats measuring!

thanks again for all the help....time to rack my dunkel to the carboy!

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Very cool. Another gadget to put on the wishlist for when I convert the unfinished basement to Dad's Bar and Brewhouse.

Can you use light soap and water to sanitize if you thourghly rinse the items..? I also heard that oxyclean free was good to use.. is that true..?

anthonyb15fd said:

Can you use light soap and water to sanitize if you thourghly rinse the items..? I also heard that oxyclean free was good to use.. is that true..?

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while its good to clean everything soap isn't a sanitizer neither is oxyclean. oxyclean rinse and then sanitize with Starsan-Iodopher I would not use regular soap.

Soap is detergent which is good for cleaning or removing visible soil from an object. Once the visible soil is removed, then you need a sanitizing agent like Starsan/Iodopher.

anthonyb15fd said:

Can you use light soap and water to sanitize if you thourghly rinse the items..? I also heard that oxyclean free was good to use.. is that true..?

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Cleaners and sanitizers are different things. Cleaners get stuff (proteins, hop debris, general dirt) off of stuff (like plastic or stainless). Sanitizers kill stuff (yeast, lactobacillus, pediococcus) that are on clean stuff after it's clean.

For the most part, cleaners don't sanitize and sanitizers don't clean. You really need both. Oxyclean free and dish soap are excellent cleaners, and iodophor and star-san are excellent sanitizers.

Honestly, at least 25% of the brewing hobby is cleaning stuff -- and it's a bigger percentage if you bottle your beer. Luckily, by the second batch, you should have stuff to drink while you're cleaning stuff.

where can I get some Starsan or Iodopher..?

anthonyb15fd said:

where can I get some Starsan or Iodopher..?

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many online vendors can help you:

Brewmasters Warehouse
Midwest Brewing Supply
Northern Brewing
Rebel Brewing
Austin Homebrew

to name a few -

And pretty much every homebrewshop these days should carry both products as well.