Iodophor vs. Iodine

[Born Brewing Co.]

Is iodophor different than Iodine? Can my kegs be sanitized with iodine? I am trying to save myself the 20 mile trip to the HBS, if I can pick up iodine at the local Walgreens. Who knows, maybe Walgreens would have iodophor? I was there at the HBS today and got my grain bill for this Friday's brew session, and forgot the iodophor for the kegs I have to fill as well. Worst case, I'll drive back to HBS.

 

[Monster Mash]

Im not sure how well iodine would work but you have to be carefull handling that stuff.

 

[G. Cretin]

Bleach and rinse bleach and rinse and rinse and rinse.

 

[user 4295]

Forget the bleaching and rinsing and rinsing and rinsing. Forget the staining of Idophor or medical grade iodine and go for the foam baby! Star-San foam that is. You will never look back. 30 second contact time, no staining, no rinsing, and lasts for weeks in a bucket as long as the pH does not go above 3. Even if it does, you can just sweeten it up again by adding some more concentrate to drive the pH back down below 3.

John

 

[G. Cretin]

Forget the bleaching and rinsing and rinsing and rinsing. Forget the staining of Idophor or medical grade iodine and go for the foam baby!

well I'm just saying any port in a storm.

 

[Glibbidy]

Iodophor and Iodine are different. Use Iodophor, while it is made up of Iodine, Iodophors are actually a combination of iodine and a solubilizing agent that releases free iodine when diluted with water. This makes it safe for use in your brewery.

Iodine works, but tends to stain, is less soluable then Iodophor, and is oddly enough a skin irritant.

 

[user 4295]

well I'm just saying any port in a storm.

I hear what you are saying Cretin. I have used bleach in a pinch, but it is not the ideal. Unless of course you have boiled up several gallons of water to rinse with, otherwise, rinsing with tap water that might be suspect could just undo what the bleach just accomplished. Also, under no circumstances should bleach be used on stainless steel. The high alkali nature of bleach can damage the oxide layer of the stainless.

John

 

[Exo]

As long as we're on the topic of bleach...how harmful is it to glass? I guess harmful isn't the word. Does it stick to the glass? In the past and in a pinch I've used bleach to clean out carboys and then rinse with just-boiled water...rinse a whole bunch.

On another side-note, I had 1tbsp in 1gallon of water blow-off container and still had an active fermentation in it...

 

[mrbugawkagawk]

a capfull of bleach to 5 gallons of water is no rinse. just takes a half hour to kill everything

 

[ArcaneXor]

Bleach and rinse bleach and rinse and rinse and rinse.

In a keg? Those are made of stainless, you know. "Bleach and stainless DNA just don't splice".

 

[Jawbox0]

Do you have a Farm Supply store, they often have gallons of Iodine based sanitizer for dairy applications which would work.

 

[giligson]

Star san may also be available via dairy supply (that's what it was originally developed for).
As mentioned Iodophor is a funky kind of detergent that gives off little bits of iodine at a time.
Tincture of iodine is classically iodine dissolved in an alcohol water soution but because it is less stable then its quite possible that the stuff at walgreens is actually iodophor anyways - check the bottle/check the manufacturers information line for MSDS.

Iodine itself is of course a solid that sublimes into a gas at room temperature (the vapor is purple - way cool), also its fairly poisonous.

 

[maffewl]

Do you have a Farm Supply store, they often have gallons of Iodine based sanitizer for dairy applications which would work.

I use the TSC gentle iodine that Revvy recommends near the end of this thread. No problems so far.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/sanitizer-question-54932/