Star San Sanitation ?

I have about 1/2 of a 48 qrt cooler full of Star San solution that i was using to clean bottles. It has been in the cooler for about a week now, sealed. Will it still be good to sanitize some cornies I just got empty? Anyone know the half life of the Star San?

 

I keep mine for about 3 weeks before I ditch it. I think when it starts getting cloudy and doesn't have that slight blue colour it's done and should be refreshed.

 

what about the star san bubbles. Is it ok for a small amount to be left in carboys before beer hits it. I tried hard to get all the bubbles out but said screw it and racked on top of them.

 

Just rack right on top, they don't hurt anything. I usually have a towering stack of bubbles coming out of my better bottles when I'm racking to secondary. It's become a challenge to see how high I can get them.

 

I can all those bubbles not be bad for the beer??

 

Starsan is just a foodgrade acid and the actual quantity in the bubbles is minute. You'd have to contact them for the specifics but I've used it for almost a year and never had a problem.

Just enjoy the fast-acting no-rinse wonder that is starsan and don't worry about it.

 

Don't fear the foam!

 

Supposedly - and I have no proof on this, only secondhand info - small amounts of Star San eventually break down into yeast nutrients.

I hardly ever rinse. Mainly because it's a no-rinse sanitizer. If I've been transferring the same batch of star san back and forth in a short period of time (like when i brew two batches and have sanitized several vessels), it tends to get REALLY foamy. In that case, the foam takes up so much of the volume of the carboy that if I were to add the wort without rinsing, the foam would end up pushing out of the carboy, which is no fun...so in those instances, I do rinse. I could get the anti-foaming agent, but it's not worth it to me, really.

 

As per Five Star Chem. Star San will last about 6 weeks IIRC. I keep a keg full of it. Change it out about once a month, or if it stops foaming.Touch it up with about a 1/4 of fresh solution every other week. Never had any problems out of it that way.

 

Star san made with distilled or RO water will last indefinitely as long as the pH remains below 3. The foam will not hurt your beer, nor affect the flavor. I racked into a keg full of foam last weekend, beer tastes excellent. Starsan foam, once diluted into beer, is a yeast nutrient. Don't fear the foam.

 

I'm using Saniclean. It's the same ingredients as StarSan, but without the foaming agent. You use it the same way. It's even cheaper than StarSan at North Country Malt.

 

I like the foam personally. It keeps the surfaces I want sanitized covered even after pouring off the liquid. Sort of like a safety net.

 

Star San is a pH dependant bacteriocidal agent. Once the pH gets above a certain point it is no longer active which is what happens when you add your beer to a fermentor or secondary. At that point the detergent becomes yeast food and will not affect the head on your beer. The detergent or foaming action is helpfull in getting it into cracks and crannies. As mentioned above once it is cloudy it is no longer effective, and the length of time is dependant on your water unless you use distilled or RO water.

I use the older stuff before it gets cloudy to wipe everything down in my kitchen/brewing space including the floor and then make a new batch...

Star San rocks!

 

Saniclean may be a little cheaper to buy, but the recommended amount for Saniclean is twice the amount of StarSan.

 

That's true...So i suppose the cost argument doesn't work, but for me, it just doesn't seem right pouring the fruits of my labor into a buch of acid bubbles. I know there is nothing wrong with it chemically, that there is just too little actual liquid in the bubbles to affect anything - just a personal quirk I suppose.

Also, in researching both cleaners, it looks like Saniclean needs 5 minutes contact time, while StarSan needs only 1-2 minutes, FWIW.

 

Yeah, that took me a little while to get over, and still I have to stop myself from rinsing!