Bottle sanitizer

[agbrewer03]

When using the bottle sanitizer sprayer, do you use full strength starsan or can I use the 1oz to 5 gal mix?

 

[h22lude]

Never use the non diluted starsan. You always need to dilute per the bottle.

 

[k_mcarthur]

Always dilute star san, and always to the specified amount. I make up 2.5 gal and dunk all the bottles for a couple seconds to let some inside, dump and put on bottle tree. Afterwards I fill all my spray bottles with the solution and keep for a handy way to sanitize things.

 

[unionrdr]

Using the measure built into the top of the bottle,bring the Starsan 3/4's of the way up to the 1/4oz mark & mix with 1 gallon water. That's what I've been doing. Multiply that by 5,& that's the amount for 5 gallons of water. IOW's,1oz per 5 gallons. I fill my spray bottle with that. But I also have a bottle tree & vinator for sanitizing right before filling.

 

[agbrewer03]

I actually had a system last night that worked really well.

I save my 5 gallons of star san mix from brew day in my bottling bucket.

I dunked all my bottles in the mix then used the bottle sprayer to get teh bubbles out. I just used the same mix in the sprayer. Worked really well and had little star san residue in my bottles.

I have to say, the WIlliams spigot kits work GREAT! Spigot from fermenter to bottle bucket to bottle. no complaints here.

Ended up with 36 1/2 liter swing tops filled. Well the last one had about 2 1/2 inches of space to the top.

 

[Jayhem]

use the diluted ratio! And let it sit for 5 minutes to fully sanitize.

That said. I have a much better method of sanitizing bottles on bottling day!

1. A simple 24 hour soak of all bottles in Oxiclean solution.

2. Rinse bottles and put on bottle tree or drying rack inverted to drip dry. They will be sparkling clean.

3. Stand bottles vertical on standard oven rack and sanitize at 200F for 20 minutes. (A standard oven fits about 55 bottles)

Turn off oven and crack open door. Once bottles are cool enough to touch, take directly out of oven 6 or 12 at a time and bottle!

Benefits to my method? A. No extra star san bitterness in light beers B. nice dry bottles to handle, no slippery bottles! I have never dropped a bottle while bottling with this method and never had an infection and I've bottled some 3,000 bottles so far!

 

[unionrdr]

I haven't broken any by dropping slippery bottles either. And I use Starsan with my vinator,so the outside isn't soaked with it. Spend the money on a bottle tree & vinator. Makes life way easier & no extra $$ spent on utilities runnin the oven.