I use the same star san for months - my tap water is very nearly RO water so I'm lucky in that regard
With a spray bottle, I will caution you to buy a high quality bottle. I've gone through about 5 cheap ones because the acid eats away the spring inside the spray nozzle plunger and it'll stop spraying after just a couple weeks.
quite a long time. As long as it holds its pH (~3?) its good.I've heard of people keeping Star San in a spray bottle for quickly sanitizing things. How long is that good for in the bottle? I've read mixed reviews. It breaks down after a bit and some have said its good for a long time.
as a carryover from a couple decades of work related OSHA training, I label everything with a sharpie as to its contents.Yep. There's a $1 sprayer and the $4 sprayer at Home Depot (might have been Lowe's). I went through ALL of the cheap ones until I started buying the better ones. Spend the extra money.
Also, if you use these spray bottles for other stuff around your house, add a couple of drops of food coloring to make sure you're not spraying window cleaner or RoundUp in your beer.
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I just mixed Starsan and our regular tap water and haven't had any issues. My understanding is to pitch it once it gets cloudy, but I've had a spray bottle at the ready for years now and haven't seen any cloudiness or had any problems with sanitization.
Ditto... usually only remake it every 3 months or so. But just wanted to throw that out there for people that may have issues fetching 5g of RO water, or justifying the $1 for water if they can't keep a 5gallon bucket of it around.Many of us keep a bit more than 5 gallons of Star San mix on hand for purging kegs.
Can't do that with a spray bottle...
Cheers!
Ditto... usually only remake it every 3 months or so. But just wanted to throw that out there for people that may have issues fetching 5g of RO water, or justifying the $1 for water if they can't keep a 5gallon bucket of it around.
Try just plain tap water first. If the pH stays at 3.0 or lower it will work even if it gets cloudy.
Not gonna lie.. I've used normal tap water and kept the batch over a period of time. But I've also done things with no starsan and not had an infection (dropping random adjuncts into the fermenter, pulling something out of a fermenter with my hands and not sanitizing the fermenter again).
But if you want to be sure you're sanitizer is working i'd suggest pony up the $1 for a gallon of DI water at the grocery store. It's good insurance to be sure. If you have room for a 5 gallon bucket or corney most of the DI water stations charge only $1 for 5 gallons. That's my preferred method... and i push the sani inbetween kegs and store in a keg or 5gallon bucket. I also keep a spray bottle around and refill it .. but always from DI water so i know i'm good to go.
Supposedly from a 5star rep:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/3w3aqf/how_long_does_star_san_hold_up/
"The cloudy solution could be okay, but it could be bad. The cloudiness is the surfactant coming out of solution. It has reacted, or is reacting with the metals in the water. I don’t know if it is still good, because I don’t know how much surfactant has reacted. I error on the side of caution and suggest that you don’t even mess with it. Use DI water.”
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