Star san and chlorinated water

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Bobcatbrewing42

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2014
Messages
293
Reaction score
53
I've been brewing for 8 years and used star san most of the time. I've had no problems. When I mixed it with tap water is was clear with bit of foam, and would foam when shaken. Their website says it is still good after it gets cloudy from usage. Before the last two brews, I noticed that the star san mixture, instantly clouded up in a clean glass container. I wondered what was up but used it. When I kegged my last beer (British golden ale) it is so cloudy that it looks like cornstarch is in it. It's only been a few days but I usually get pretty good clarity by then. The beer looked and tasted great when I kegged it. I suspect my city water. I mixed 3 batches of star san w tap, soft and R.O. water. The tap water looks like milk. The other two are clear. I crushed a campden tablet and put a tiny bit into the cloudy star san....Voila!- it cleared right up. I tried the same experiment in a glass of the cloudy beer but no immediate result. Has anyone experienced this? Would adding a bit of campden do any good in the keg? We have very hard water that varies seasonally. Sometimes it smells of chlorine.
 
Campden is used for removing chlorine and chloramine from tap water. As far as I know chlorine doesn't affect the action of Starsan. Everything that I have read says that it doesn't matter if it is cloudy as long as the pH is 3.0 or lower. I never had any clouding with the water where I used to live. I get some clouding now, it has not caused any problems and never thought about putting Campden in it. I wouldn't think the tiny amount of Starsan left would do anything to your beer. I suspect something in the recipe or just more time needed to clear.

With chlorine smell in your water did you use Campden to treat it? I would expect flavor problems if chlorine was present not cloudiness.
 
I always treat my brewing and Starsan (tap) water with a pinch of Meta to remove the chlorine. Our water is fairly soft, 34 ppm alkalinity, but freshly mixed Starsan gets cloudy within hours, but I use it for several weeks (months even). Seems to keep working fine.

I never noticed the Campden or Meta treated water making any difference as to the cloudiness, so your observation surely stands apart and piques interest. I'll try to add more Meta, see what happens.

I hope you always treat your brewing water with some Meta/Campden, it's cheap insurance to remove chlorine or chloramines which create havoc with beer flavor.

Not sure why your beer is so cloudy, could well be from high mineral content. Which yeast did you use? Some are more powdery and stay suspended longer and benefit greatly from cold crashing and often some gelatin once or twice. You could do that in the keg. Then either blow out the sediment with the first few pints, leaving the keg undisturbed from there on, moving may put it back into suspension, or jump to another serving keg.

In my early brewing career I brewed an ESB that remained super cloudy (looked like mud). I had used way too much minerals in an effort of mimicking a Burton profile, not fully understanding the process.
I suspect something had happened with the yeast (WY1968) too, it wouldn't attenuate anywhere near expected. I then (unintentionally) oxidized the beer trying to rouse the yeast over several days. Needless to say, it was barely drinkable. :tank:
A new batch only using careful measurements of minerals and using a fresh pack of WY1968 (and a starter) turned out quite well, and had dropped clear within days of finished fermentation.
 
Thanks for the replies. I just brewed a similar batch with water that sat overnight in the HLT and MT and added a campden tablet. Hoping for better results. For the previous batch, the ale (nottingham yeast- an old standby) is totally murky. Its not contaminated. Still a complete mystery. The lager is clear and beautiful, nice head with a nice nose up front with a nasty, sharp, probably phenolic aftertaste. I think the town I'm in really juiced the chlorine or chloramine in the muni water. I can smell it. For years, there was so little, I got careless.
I will probably have to dump them both if lagering doesn't help. Any input on lagering to get rid of phenol? How about blowing CO2 through it?
 
Thanks for the replies. I just brewed a similar batch with water that sat overnight in the HLT and MT and added a campden tablet. Hoping for better results. For the previous batch, the ale (nottingham yeast- an old standby) is totally murky. Its not contaminated. Still a complete mystery. The lager is clear and beautiful, nice head with a nice nose up front with a nasty, sharp, probably phenolic aftertaste. I think the town I'm in really juiced the chlorine or chloramine in the muni water. I can smell it. For years, there was so little, I got careless.
I will probably have to dump them both if lagering doesn't help. Any input on lagering to get rid of phenol? How about blowing CO2 through it?
If that's what you got, from what I understand Chlorophenols cannot be removed, at least not on a brewer's level, sadly.

You may want to use RO water (bulk filled into your own containers from a machine in Walmart or supermarket) or distilled water. Just make sure it's not tainted either. If you brew a lot, or want to drink and cook with purer water, buy a small "under sink" RO unit. They can be had for $100. Buckeye Hydro is one of our sponsors.
 
Back
Top