Star San

is it wrong to fill your unused carboy with san star while it awaits your next batch?? can it get smelly? I was thinking that if i cleaned it well, then just kept it full....shake it up, drain and its ready to go......

 

You don't really need to store it full of starsan. Just clean & sanitize it before storage & sanitize it again right before use. The stuff works pretty fast.

 

I had a question about starsan. When I was reading up on Dry hopping I saw some people say they used it to sanitize the actual whole hops. Is this ok to do? I thought by washing the dried hops it would rinse the oils out of the hops thus not giving the hop flavor you are trying to add by dry hopping. Either Way I did not do this but plan on dry hopping in the future. Any thoughts?

 

Don't rinse or sanitize the hops. It's not necessary at all. That's what they do for the beer. Just sanitize the hop sack before putting the hops in'em & drop it in.

 

I've stored it with Star San in it to try to prevent mold growing--a problem here. It never caused problems. However, I still use a fresh batch of Star San before filling the carboy. I'm not going to spend good money on ingredients and equipment then spend 6 hours of my day only to risk it all by trying to reuse an ounce of Star San.

I always make a fresh 5 gallons of Star San on the day of brewing. I refill my Star San spray bottle from this so I have some between sessions for sanitizing beer thieves, etc. The five gallon new batch of Star San gets racked back and forth into any container that needs sanitized during the brew day--I do double batches so as a minimum I will have two carboys to sanitize. When I'm done for the day I either pitch this bucket last or cover to store.

An ounce of Star San is cheap and the stuff so effortless to mix and use, why risk your batch?

 

This is the way to go. I sanitize the sack and then sanitize the outside of a bag of pellets, open the bag of pellets, dump them straight into the sack, tie off and immerse.

 

The stuff can last a longer time than most think. If the PH is 3 or lower,it's good. Cloudiness also has little to do with it's viablity.

 

Thanks I didnt think that was a good thing to do.

 

As far as how a San my carboys. I use starsan brush those badboys good and clean then I turn um upside down for a couple days to let them drain and as not to cause mold growth on the bottom which is a pain in the Beep to get out! Then once good and dry I put the plug in and store them so dust or anything does not get in. Once brew day is here I rinse again with Starsan and go to town.

 

^ AND.....my buddy uses oxy-clean (like the one on tv but now on the shelves). I use that too. let that carboy or blow off tube soak in that and it melts the crud away!! i then rise well....very well, then star san it all.
hyperworriedaboutcleanlyness !!

 

I let my carboys soak in oxi-free for 24 hours (no brush ever!!). Rinse with hot water well. Drain for 30 minutes upside down. Done. They look as clean as they did when brand new and most have been used for a couple of years. Granted I don't live in an especially humid climate, so that part might be different.

I don't use any Star san until a few minutes before filling.

 

When I used carboys....I used to store them long term with diluted bleach water.

My cleaning regimen was as follows:

1. Clean with Oxyclean.
2. Store with diluted bleach water
3. Sanitize with Starsan before use.

I use kegs for fermentation now...so it is Oxyclean and Satrsan exclusively.

 

I've been researching mold cleaning for other reasons and bleach doesn't kill mold. You need a acid, star San or vinegar. Just an FYI.
Keep it dry and no mold.
Clean with oxy clean or pbw and let completely dry. Star San before use.
That's all, very easy .

 

What's the most effective sanitizer of the two: Star San or IO Star? Are there some applications one ought to be used for and not the other?

My bottle that came with the beer making kit has almost run out and i need to order more.

 

Most of us prefer starsan,a wet sanitizer. Craigtubes latest video talks about these things. He refers to a podcast with the chemist that created starsan about bleach solutions & what they can & can't do.

 

Yeah, Craig's latest Q&A videos have been a huge help as far as figuring out what to use and how it works...

 

I mixed a batch of star san in a 5 gallon bucket just to keep for sanitizing small things throughout brewing/fermenting (hydrometer, thief, etc)....how long should the star san stay active/good for in the bucket? I wouldn't imagine it would lose its effectiveness for many months? I didn't see anything from star san re:this and have been paranoid the 5gal batch would not sanitize something later on if used....

 

Get yourself some PH Test Strips and as long as it tests at 3 or below your good to go!

-deicide

 

^^^This^^^

I thought if it went cloudy it was time to dump it and make a fresh mix. Time to get some PH strips. thanks.

 

I'm pretty sure mine mixes cloudy immediately. I hope that doesn't mean something in my water is neutralizing it.

 

The minerals in your water are reacting with it to turn it cloudy, but not neutralizing it. pH test strips, as mentioned above work effectively. I use my starsan until:
either ph gets close to 3
2 brew days
Or 2 months elapse.
Most often all 3 occur simultaneously as I brew about 1x per month

 

starsan only maintains its sanitizing power for about three days with my water. i don't know how the water is in nashville.

i think you're better off storing it with your cleaning agent (PBW/Oxyclean) than with starsan.

i'm one of the few people that finds starsan generally annoying, though, so i could be a bit biased.

 

You must have some funky hard water for it not to last long. As long as the PH is 3 or lower,it's fine. And I'll say it again-CLOUDY DOSEN'T EQUAL PH CHANGE! It has little to nothing to do with how well Starsan works. See the test video guys like craigtube & some on here have done.

 

Mine reads a Ph of about 5 after 2-3 days.

 

You must have a bit of something in your water that's slowly making the acidic Starsan go alkaline. You might have to start using ro or distilled water if you want it to last.

 

When I'm done using it, I wipe out my bucket and fill it with a scoop of oxi-clean and the rest water. I throw everything in there (airlock, tubing, stirring spoons, etc) and let it sit overnight. If there's any krausen or anything on it, at that point it wipes right off. I dump the oxi-clean, let it dry, and put the lid on with a piece of tape over the airlock hole. When it's time to brew again, I just spray a liberal coat of star-san on everything and have at it. Same goes for the bottling stuff, with the spigot from the bucket being disassembled and cleaned, and some star-san being siphoned through the tubing/auto-syphon.

 

Cleaners like oxyfree & PBW are intended to be rinsed off. Starsan is intended to be left on,as it's a no rinse,wet contact sanitizer.

 

Sorry, I left out the part where I stand on the deck shooting everything out with the garden hose after the oxi-clean is dumped. I don't leave the oxi-clean to dry on anything as I don't want to leave a residue.

 

How do you guys sanitize oak chips ? Can you just steam them before use?

 

We have a water dispenser at home, so I'm always picking up 5 gallon bottles of purified water. I always grab an extra when I go and use that to mix up star-san solution. When I'm done using it, it always gets siphoned back into that original 5 gallon bottle and the cap goes back on. The longest I have ever kept a batch it 2 months, but even at that point it was still measuring below a ph of 3. I still dump it and mix up a new batch though, just because of what people have said on here and the fact that it's been through a cuple of brew days and I'm worried about some crud possibly being left in it. I will say though, it just seems like such a waste to dump all that star-san solution that seems perfectly fine to still use.

 

Five Star says Starsan is good at PH 3.5 or lower (going towards acidic). It's when it goes above 3.5 towards alkaline that it's no good. I use a radiator filling funnel (wider spout) with coffee filters to filter grainy stuff,pet dander,etc out of my Starsan now & then. It even becomes a hair less cloudy. The radiator filler funnel & coffee filter combo flows a lot better than a regular funnel & coffee filter does as well. Makes the job of filtering go faster.

 

Clean with Oxyclean or PBW, store with foil over the mouth or upside down, rinse on brew day then sanitize. Don't over-think the process.

 

It's better to rinse PBW or Oxyfree right after cleaning to prevent dried on residue. I got to liking sanitizing with Starsan before storage & again right before use. They stay cleaner smelling that way ime.