Use of iodine

Quick question...
If iodine can be used to sterilize equipment, and it can be used to make dirty water into clean drinking water, can it be used in place of campden tablets?

BigStone777 said:

Quick question...
If iodine can be used to sterilize equipment, and it can be used to make dirty water into clean drinking water, can it be used in place of campden tablets?

Click to expand...

I think it COULD...But I don't think you'd want to. I think that in enough concentration to kill bacteria in a mass of water, it would flavor your mead, as well as have an effect on your yeast.

When you think of sanitizers...think of the fact that you don't really use ALL of the sanitizer to kill off the bugs on stuff. It is only the few molecule thick layer that actually touches a surface that does the work. This is why they are "NO RINSE". They really leave almost nothing behind when dumped out.

Do I remember that you are in Back Woods China somewhere? Due to your lack of campden, You might try a spontanious ferment for a few days before adding yeast. You might come up with someting really great.

to sanitize drinking water only just boil it. iodine does sublimate out of water so in theory you could add it to water, wait for it to evaporate and use it but I would not add it to anything but water. iodine reacts with starches among other things so I wouldnt mix it with honey.

wikipedia says it can be used to purify drinking water at a rate of "3 drops per litre, let stand for 30 minutes"