Help with Star San!

I've been using iodophor, but with all the positives of Star San, I want to give it a try...

I'm getting conflicting info on how to use Star San. If I want to use it in a spray bottle, how much Star San do I add to a 24 oz. spray bottle? Also, I understand that I should use only distilled water, right?

Lastly, is the spray bottle the way to go for sanitizing all my smaller items? How do you guys sanitize your carboys and buckets? Fill it up with water, or halfway and slosh? And how much Star San to water for buckets and carboys? Thanks everyone.

Here is what I do:

Buy a one gallon jug of distilled water.
Get a small syringe and add 6ml of Star San Concentrate to the jug.
Use this for carboys, buckets, etc.
Get a wall paper pan for your long items, tubes.
Fill the spray bottle from this jug.

The amount of Star San for 24 oz is very small. Probably too small to measure accurately.

I mix the 1/4 ounce star san (fill to the line on the bottle) with 1.25 gallons of water. I'll mix that up in the bigger fermenter first and shake it up well. It'll coat all the areas. Then, I'll sanitize the hoses and other stuff right in that bucket, coating all sides and inside by using the autosiphon/tubing. Then I pour some into the spray bottle. And put the airlocks, etc, in the rest of the sanitizer in the bottom of the fermenter. When I'm finished, I save that in a clean milk jug, and so I have the spray bottle and milk jug each with some sanitizer in it. You don't need to fill a carboy or fermenter, as long as all areas stay wet for at least a minute.

(I'm a little, um, beered up tonight, so if this sounds rambling, I'll explain tomorrow)

YooperBrew said:

I mix the 1/4 ounce star san (fill to the line on the bottle) with 1.25 gallons of water. I'll mix that up in the bigger fermenter first and shake it up well. It'll coat all the areas. Then, I'll sanitize the hoses and other stuff right in that bucket, coating all sides and inside by using the autosiphon/tubing. Then I pour some into the spray bottle. And put the airlocks, etc, in the rest of the sanitizer in the bottom of the fermenter. When I'm finished, I save that in a clean milk jug, and so I have the spray bottle and milk jug each with some sanitizer in it. You don't need to fill a carboy or fermenter, as long as all areas stay wet for at least a minute.

(I'm a little, um, beered up tonight, so if this sounds rambling, I'll explain tomorrow)

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Even in your beered up state, that makes perfect sense, thanks!

I just make up a 5 gallon batch of Starsan in a Home Depot Bucket and then fill the spray bottle from that.

I never use distilled water for starsan, garden hose water seems to work just fine.

Get a 5 gallon water bottle from HEB, take it to the Glacier water dispenser and fill it with the RO water. Take it home and add 1 oz. of StarSan. You now have 5 gallons of sanitizer that will last months for those immediate needs like filling sprayers and such.

For brewing, kegging or bottling, get a bucket and mark the 2.5 gallon point with a sharpie. Fill the bucket with 2.5 gallons of cold tap water and add 1 Tablespoon of StarSan and stir well. You now have plenty for the job. Be sure to pour it back in the bucket as you use it. It will stay good for a day or so, but the minerals in your water will make it cloudy while your 5 gallons made with RO water stay clear.

You only need to coat the item and let it sit for 60 seconds to call it sanitized.

For the moment, I'm stuck with iodophor. So, one last question;

How much should I use in a 24 oz. spray bottle, and can I spray down my thief and let sit for 2 minutes for it to be sanitized? I need to take a hydro reading tonight, and I would rather not make a large amount of iodophor + water to sanitize.

24 ounces is .1875 gallons. I've never used Star San, but it looks like, based on other posts in this thread, it requires 6 ml per gallon of water. So 6 ml x .1875 = 1.125 ml. 1 ml is .203 US teaspoons, so you need 1.125 x .203 = .228 US teaspoons. I'd call that a scant quarter teaspoon, meaning that you can measure a not-overfull quarter teaspoon of Star San and you'll be fine.

Edit: Oops, I see that your last question was how much iodophore in a 24 ounce bottle. It happens that Iodophore requires 6ml per gallon, so the calculations above are accurate for Iodophore. Use a scant quarter teaspoon.

Note: You are going to need more than 24 ounces of either cleaner for a brew session. Iodophore doesn't keep as long as Star San does. I suggest you mix up 2.5 gallons of Iodophore (1/4 ounce = 1/2 capful to 2.5 gallons of water) and fill your squirt bottle from that. But in my opinion, Iodophore doesn't make a good spray sanitizer because the surface needs to stay wet for 2 minutes. You should use immersion or periodic sloshing techniques for sanitizing with Iodophore.

McKBrew said:

I just make up a 5 gallon batch of Starsan in a Home Depot Bucket and then fill the spray bottle from that.

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+1 here. Same thing