Iodophor in a spray bottle?

[STUNTx2]

Hello,
I've read few posts about people using spray bottles to sanitize various peices of equipment and was wondering if this would work with a properly mixed solution of Iodophor. It was my understanding, from the information on the bottle that I need either 3 or 5 minutes of contact time depending on the brand to properly sanitize. My assumumtion was, based on this and home brew techniques I have seen that the only way to get this much contact time was to fill a sink or large container and let equipment or bottles soak in it for the alloted time. This means that I use an exsesive amount of water, 6.5 gallons ever time I do my carboy, more than that for my bottling bucket, and probably another 5 gallons that I let hoses and my racking cane and funnell etc. soak in. If I could put some in spray bottle and spray the inside of my bucket a few times and get a properly sanitized bucket that would make a world of difference. Any other suggestions you might have to reduce my water usage and still have properly sanitized equipment, short of switching to Sanstar(just bought a new bottle of Iodophor then found this forum) would be greatly apreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Professor Frink]

By contact, there just has to be iodophor on the bucket, it doesn't necessarily have to soak. For example, I usually fill the bucket or carboy up to 1 gal. with the appropriate dilution of iodophor, then slosh it around, wait a couple minutes, and I'm good to go.

 

[Germey]

My bottle of iodophor says 30 sec of contact time.

 

[Alamo_Beer]

Yup spray bottle sanitizer rocks! It makes it soooo much easier and you use much less. Just make sure everything is nice and clean and give it a good spray. For carboys and buckets I still slosh about a gallon or so just for good measure but everything else gets a spray down.

 

[Donasay]

The problem with Iodaphor versus say star-san is that its half life is much shorter, and exposure to sunlight and heat cause it to become a less effective sanitizer over time.

I personally wouldn't put Iodaphor in a spray bottle because I would not trust its ability to sanitize after a week of sitting diluted in the bottle, but that is just me. I have a star-san sprayer that I swap out the liquid every 2 months.

 

[ScoutMan]

This podcast from Basic Brewing Radio is well worth a listen with regards to Iodophor.
http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-22-07.mp3

 

[STUNTx2]

Thanks for all the feed back guys. Other than the half life issue it sounds like a pretty good idea. As long as I mix a new solution on each day that it is need, there is realy no problem with it right? Sounds like I just cut my water usage dramaticaly. A gallon for the bottling bucket sounds way better than 7.

 

[Rhoobarb]

... As long as I mix a new solution on each day that it is need, there is realy no problem with it right? ...

Yep, that's what I do. And you only need to slosh ~1.5 gallons or so around your carboy real good to get it nice and sanitized.

Here's a great tip I got from a homebrewer years ago. Take that ~1.5 gallons of Iodophor in the carboy and pour it into one of these:

It's a wallpaper tray. Any hardware store will have them for ~$3.00 each. It will hold my tubing, autosiphon, beer thief, hydrometer, airlock, stopper, etc., and not take up a lot of space. Get a couple and stack them together for extra strength.

 

[Alamo_Beer]

Yup thats a good point...I just use the iodophor solution THAT day and make up a new batch as needed

 

[Jamo99]

Iodophor diluted will sanitize for about 8 hrs before you'll need to mix up a new batch. That wallpaper tray is a great idea for tubing, siphon, thief, etc., since it's kind of tough to spray the inside of those. The spray bottle is nice to have to give something a quick spritz if you just want to be doubly safe.