Sanitizing your fermenter

Two questions:

1 do you siphon sanitizer from a bucket or dump it in through a funnel?

2 do you make enough sanitizer for all 6.5 gal or swirl 5 gallons around a bit and assume that'll do?

 

I make 1.25 gal and swirl that around. It's more than enough.

 

I use star-san and its a contact sanitizer. So, like JohM said. I dump it in using a funnel. Put a solid stopper in my carboys and shake. Then dump out into the bucket I use to sanitize everything else.

 

I keep about 4~4.5 gallons of Star San mix in a 5 gallon carboy. On brew day I dump the whole thing into a 6.5g bucket with a spigot on the bottom, use the bucket to sanitize tools and hoses, and when I go to sanitize my 6.5g carboy(s) I drain about a quart into the carboy, swirl it around to coat the entire insides, then pour it back into the bucket and stick a sanitized bung into it to hold until I'm ready to fill it with wort.

At the end of the brew day I drain the bucket back into the 5g carboy and set it in storage 'til the next brew day. I always test the pH before using it and as long as it remains below 3.0 it's good to go. The current batch was made up using distilled water back in October, freshened with another gallon of mix in December. It's still clear and more than potent enough to do the job (last pH was 2.75)...

Cheers!

 

When I use a carboy, I drop in a couple gallons of water, (estimate) and a half ounce of starsan, shake it up every hour or so during the brewday to keep the foam up to the top.
Dump it out when the wort chiller goes in the boil, and get everything ready to transfer.

When I use a sanke, I put a gallon of water in, and boil it for 10 minutes or so.

 

I use Iodaphor so the cost doesn't bother me to make a 6 gal batch. I fill the carboy all the way up to the tippy top, and top it off after the bubbles settle out. After a few minutes I dump it into a Rubbermaid tote to sanitize everything else (airlocks, sampler, funnel, stopper, etc). When racking over to my kegs I make enough to fill the keg half way, sanitize, put on lid hit iwth CO2 and the flip over to get all the top pieces, then if any of my faucets are open I'll run the solution through the faucet just to keep my lines healthy.

 

I don't use such a small amount of star San because I'm cheap. Its just a waste for me to make 5-6 gallons, when a gallon and a quick swirl/shake does the job.