StarSan Imploded!

It's bottling day! I went to retrieve a couple jugs of starsan solution and found this;

I've never seen anything like this before. There was solution all over my wood floor (and now I have a little area that's buckled).. Needless to say, I will now be storing my jugs in a rubbermaid container!

 

Not exactly sure what causes that. Possibly going from hot to cold, but I had a gas can do that after sitting outside for a day with no major temperature change. Can't imagine major temp changes inside of your house either. Guess I'm lucky it happened outdoors for me.

 

Was the starsan warm when you bottled it? I'll bet money it was warm, as it cooled it shrank up and crinkled. Let it cool before snapping on the lid and you'll be fine, or use a container that will breathe.

 

Or use a container that has some strength to it. IMO, the thin walled water/milk jugs are a poor choice for holding StarSan, or any chemical.

I use a container from the restaurant supply store (food safe, made to withstand high temps) to hold my StarSan solution. It does have a pretty tight fitting lid (if there's enough of a temperature change, I get condensation on the underside of the lid). It holds just over 5 gallons, so more than I'll ever use at a single time.

 

It wasn't hot/warm. It was room temp when I mixed it and room temp when I stored it, and I had actually used it 2 or 3 times prior to this happening. My house temp might fluctuate 6-8*F over the coarse of 24 hours. I've used these jugs for a long time without any issues. I do believe, if I remember correct, that this particular container was filled to the very top almost. It had a 1/2 inch of headspace at best. I'm thinking that might have been enought to cause this to happen with just a nominal amount of temp change in the house. But... That's just a theory. I guess once it started leaking out of the lid it created some sort of vacuum/siphon effect which kept drawing out more liquid. Very strange! I will look into better quality plastic containers in the future. For now they are all in a big Rubbermaid...

 

I should have taken your bet! I could use some extra money for this hobby! :cross:

 

I don't know why the StarSan imploded, but when my water jugs of the same type of plastic all broke from stacking too high my wood floor buckled too. I let it dry, hid it from SWMBO, and after a couple weeks everything was more or less back to normal. Good luck! Kyle

 

A 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot/Lowes will be a better option. I've used one from Lowes without issue before (it's not the normal container for me though). I like the graduate container that I normally use since I don't need to measure the water filling it before adding StarSan.

 

HAHA, glad you got away with it! If it's a small amount of water it will indeed go back down after it dries out. It just so happens I've been a wood floor installer/finisher for 23 years, and I installed said floor.

 

I actually have a lot of food grade buckets of many sizes that I've collected from bakeries. I just don't like storing the starsan in larger containers. It's more manageable for me in gallon containers. Sometimes I only need a gallon or less, and I don't want to lug around a 5 gallon pail.

 

I typically mix up 2.5 gallons at a time. That's typically left in the kitchen (when it's not brew day). I also have spray bottles (32 ounce) for use when I don't need to do more than just coat the item in StarSan (quick sanitizing). Only times I find that I'll mix up more StarSan is if I need to dunk bottles that need more to become submerged.

I don't consider moving 2.5-5 gallons of StarSan 'lugging'. Moving around 10-15 gallons of water to go to a sponsored brew event (where you bring your own brew water) IS lugging around.

Besides, you could mix up into the 5 gallon bucket, and then just fill a jug (or smaller bucket) to use where you want.