Aged Star San

[Muneio]

I had some old Star San also also so I called them, they claim a 1 yr shelf life.

 

[Billy]

Without sounding like a jerk, Star San isn't incredibly expensive, if it were me I'd opt for finding some new stuff on the cheap.

 

[HerotBrewer]

I'll chime in. Though a brewing newbie, I work at a cheese plant and sanitation is very important. Actually the three sanitizers we use all the time are chlorine, iodine and an acid sanitizer. Every year we have the rep from out chemical company come in for sanitation training. A few things he has said that fit with the questions/comments in this thread:

1. Sanitization is not cleaning. Forget what you hear in adverts for Scrubbing Bubbles, bubbles don't scrub. You need to remove the "gross soil" that can harbor bacteria before you sanitize. This is cleaning and often requires manual action like scrubbing with a brush or scrub pad.

2. Sanitizers are formulated to work perfectly at the recommended strength. Adding more doesn't make anything more sanitary, it just messes up the process. Unless you're trying to remove paint as one poster mentioned. You'd think that as a rep for a chemical company he would want us to use as much as possible, but that's not the case.

3. Never mix acids and chlorines. You will make mustard gas. So keep the bleach away from the star san.

 

[krisagon]

I have the same problem with the mixture turning cloudy after I added it right away.

I got this tip from the inventor, Charlie Talley on a podcast.
Starsan will turn cloudy if it touches too many minerals... long story short, the minerals get in the way of the acid bonding with hydrogen.

Solution: use DISTILLED water ($1/gallon) from your supermarket to dilute starsan.
After I'm done sanitizing, I pour my diluted starsan back into the gallon jugs (marking them as starsan). There may be some extra foam at the end, so watch out for spills.

Charlie says this stuff will keep and stay clear for months.
It does, I keep it for 3 months and then make a new one.

 

[GSM]

i'm takign it that everyone is talkign about a mixed solution of starsan - cause the undiluted stuff in the bottle will pretty much keep for years and years right?

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

i'm takign it that everyone is talkign about a mixed solution of starsan - cause the undiluted stuff in the bottle will pretty much keep for years and years right?

Yes.