I care a lot about saving money, and I can't afford for home brewing to be as expensive as wine in the store. On the other hand, time is money, and I don't want to say five cents on my sanitizer, only to spend hours and effort having to go through the process of using it. I wish I could use bleach, but it will leave off flavors over time and is bad for plastic. I have looked at some sanitizers, but they are all very expensive, They stain plastic, and for all of them, you have to make them yourself. I would be fine mixing it up myself I suppose if it were cheap, but to have to pay for an expensive sanitizer that I have to mix up myself is not good. I especially need it to be cheap because if I am going to sanitize this equipment, I have to sanitize my sink first because I do all sorts of things in there putting food down the garbage disposal. I live in an apartment with no dishwasher, so that won't work. Even if I had a dishwasher, that still would not work because I just need a way to easily sanitize things right before I use them. Can you just sanitize with rubbing alcohol or will that not work? I know that it would leave off flavors, but if you rinsed it, it probably wouldn't. I am doing my first Welches right now. I have not had to sanitize yet because all of my equipment was new, and I am just making it in the juice bottle, which is a sterile container before you break the seal. However, I will need to sanitize my equipment once the wine is finished and to make future batches, so I would appreciate any advice. I would like to sanitize my equipment, as well as plastic bottles I save that I want to use to store and carbonate. I was also thinking of racking the finished wine into a sanitized jar, cleaning and sanitizing the grape juice bottle, and then racking the wine back into that bottle. I am looking for a way to both clean and sanitize. If I can do them both at once, that would be great.
Cheap and easy way to both clean and sanitize plastic wine making equipment
- Thread starter Geode
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Tons of cheap sanitizers.
1 oz bleach and 1 oz vinegar diluted in 5 gal. No-rinse, no residue, no problem.
Not reusable past brew day.
StarSan. Seems pretty cheap to me, and when diluted in distilled or RO water it can be saved and reused indefinitely.
1/4 tsp in 3 1/3 cups is fine for a 1 gal brew day.
Iodophor. Even cheaper than StarSan. Does stain plastic, but who cares?
Why are you sanitizing your sink??
New equipment is NOT sterile and still needs to be sanitized.
You also need a cleaner because only clean equipment can be sanitized. There isn't one product that does both.
I use a homemade PBW for cleaning.
Cheers
One Step will clean and sanitize. It is not certified by the FDA as a sanitizer but it works. there is a similar product named Easy Clean, five pounds costs $20 on Amazon. That should last many years.
This! ^
Your suggestion of using rubbing alcohol, sounds preposterous as that is way more expensive than the listed alternatives. And it may leave noticeable traces. Rubbing alcohol is poisonous when ingested.
Instead of (homemade) PBW you can simply use washing soda (aka. laundry booster) that runs $4 for 3-4 pounds or so. 1 tablespoon per gallon is plenty. For a little more oomph you can add 1 tsp of TSP (or TSP/90) to that. Use a non scratching nylon brush on plastic. Hot or warm detergents clean better than cold ones.
+1 to Starsan. A $20 32oz bottle of Starsan concentrate lasted me 7 years. I store the working solution (WS) in a small bucket and (re)use it for months, until it gets gray and grimey. You can also put it in a spray bottle for localized sanitation. Use a small Starsan drenched washcloth to sanitize larger surfaces and insides of buckets. A Iodophor WS doesn't stay active that long.
These products are all fairly cheap given how little of the concentrate you use.
The main cost of making wine or brewing beer are the actual ingredients. Which becomes a total waste of time and money if you don't use clean and sanitized equipment. I really can't see your argument.
RPh_Guy
Bringing Sour Back
Is there some kind of evidence to support this?
Star san is super cheap, especially if you used distilled or have an RO filter like I do. I reuse mine over and over and once it starts to get a little cloudy it goes into a spray bottle that I use to sanitize surfaces in my kitchen, and I do sanitize the sink as well as every surface that I might set something down on. Of course I do scrub everything down thoroughly with a hot soapy sponge first, since star san is a sanitizer not a cleaner. The thorough scrubbing the kitchen gets is how I compensate my wife for hijacking the entire kitchen every other Sunday.
If you do a search you'll find guys who use it exclusively. I think I read a brewing blogger who does.
MrBeer provides it as a no rinse sanitizer. When I used MrBeer, that's what I used to sanitize, it worked. I live in an old house with a cat, so sanitation is important. I now use One Step as a cleaner, and Star San as a sanitizer, but not because One Step ever failed me. I prefer the extra caution and don't mind the cost. The OP asked for a cheap method of cleaning and sanitizing, so I suggested one.
madscientist451
Well-Known Member
I mix up a 2.5 gallon batch of star san and use it over and over. A 16 oz container of the star-san concentrate seems expensive, but it lasts for years if you are careful with it. When it seems like it gets old, I start another bucket but keep the "old" stuff to sanitize carboys or other equipment like the wine press before I put them away. I use the "new" star-san solution for current brewing projects. If you are short on space, you can forget about the extra bucket and just dump the old stuff or use it to sanitize the toilet.
I use PBW to CLEAN fermenters/carboys and use that several times as well....
I use PBW to CLEAN fermenters/carboys and use that several times as well....
