Sanitizing

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chemist308

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Jan 6, 2008
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Location
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When I bought my home brewing kit, it came with a few packets of some cleaner and sanitizer I'd never heard of before I became interested in brewing. Since then I've done 3 extract batches and my first ag batch is bubbling happily in the fermenter--at least I hope that's the yeast working...

Anyway I've still yet to open the packets that came with my kit. When I washed dishes in foodservice about 15 years ago we used a 3 sink system (wash, rinse then sanitize). The sanitizers of choice: bleach and some Sysco product depending on the place. I use a similar set-up in my kitchen sink, with a brew bucket or wort pot serving as the sanitizer rinse, with 1 tbs of bleach per gallon of water. The bucket itself is sanitized by being filled to the brim with another mix of th same solution. I gotta ask, am I at risk here?
 
No, bleach is acceptable, but many don;t like it as it is harder to get off the surface of plastic.

Many use:

Iodaphor
Sulfites
Oxyclean

Starsan
Onestep
(one or both is just oxyclean, aka sodium percarbonate)

And others...
 
One other question. Which ones don't contain iodine? I ask because swmbo has an iodine allergy and I don't want iodine stuff anywhere near her.
 
I'm a huge fan of star-san. It may have a slightly higher front end cost, but the stuff lasts forever if you don't put anything dirty in it, it's no rinse, and if you forget to dump out the 1/2 gallon you used to sanitize your fermenter... the yeast will just eat it (since the 5 gal of beer will move the PH way above 3.5). Also love that it doesn't seem to stain clothes in working dilution (as opposed to the iodine or bleach based stuff).
 
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