PBW/SanStar vs bleach, ethanol/isopropyl

[alecrippa]

Hi all,
I've beed washing my equipment (pipes, tubes, fermenter, bottles) with bleached water, rinse them and used alcohol (70% ethanol or isopropyl alcool solutions) for sanitization.

Any particular reason I should switch to commercial products?

Thanks!
AC

 

[Beholder]

Personal preference TBH. However the two commercial products you reference do different things.

PBW is a cleaner while starsan is a sanitizer, the latter which is analogous to the bleach and alcohol you use. The benefit to the starsan is that it is a no-rinse sanitizer, so does so in one step, which I find convenient.

I initially did the bleach sanitation, but the rinsing to eliminate the smell / flavor got old, so I switched to Starsan after a couple brews and have done so for the last 10 years.

 

[magno]

Do what works for you. I also used bleach water when I first started, but switched to iodophor, and eventually to the 'cleanitizer' sold by Austin Homebrew Supply. Both of these are no-rinse, and make the job just a bit more efficient. I have not had an infected batch in several years.

 

[mongoose33]

Chlorine is a no-no in brewing, so most (as far as I can tell) will not use bleach in the process at all. Heck, we work to get chlorine out of water used in brewing, can't imagine intentionally introducing chlorine into the process when Star-San is so cheap.

Star-San will last for months in a 5-gallon bucket.

The process of cleaning is to remove material that might harbor bacteria; sanitizing an unclean piece of equipment may not get all the bacteria that lives in the inner layers of the dirt, and that live bacteria is likely to infect the beer.

The exception to that is anything used on the hot side, which will be sanitized during the boil.

 

[ncbrewer]

Bleach can be a problem when used with plastics. From https://www.baderbrewing.com/content/simplifying-cleaning-and-sanitizing-home-brewers "Chlorine bleach is a good cleaner for glass, but of limited usage for plastic, since it can be absorbed by the plastic, leading to off flavors in your beer, and should never be used for stainless steel, since it can actual eat holes through the stainless steel if given a long enough contact time."