Star San

[Revvy]

This is from one of the older "paranoid noob starsan fear threads."

As you say, these warnings are for the undiluted Star San product. There is no concern once it has been diluted properly. There is less phosphoric acid in properly diluted Star San than in a glass of Coca Cola. So you have to ask yourself, would you take the same precautions with a glass of soda pop? If you answered YES, then rinse away!

:fro:

Also...ever here about covering your ass with legal boilerplate in case someone does something stupid???

People are stupid...and Lawyers are smart enough to cover their clients ass with warnings.....like warning on cruise controls in campers, not to engage them, and get up and go to the bathroom...or other fun things like these...The Darwin Awards

 

[dsbcmp]

is there a recommended wait period after sanitizing equipment with starsan?

 

[bleedbluesgtr71]

Its probably not that bad for you, its not really that significant of an amount after being diluted in water. Also soda pop has sodium benzoate in it, which breaks down into benzene in the human body...

 

[bleedbluesgtr71]

*Most pop has sodium benzoate in it

 

[tcbailey]

OK, so I use Star San and I know that everybody raves about it. "Don't fear the foam." I'm not worried about the phosphoric acid. But, ingesting dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid doesn't sound healthy to me. I mean, isn't Benzene a known carcinogen? I love the stuff, it works great, it cured any sanitizing problem I've had, but can someone please ease my fear about the aromatic hydrocarbon thing? Do yeast really break it down?

Benzene by itself is bad, but there are "benzene" rings in many of the things we eat and drink. Aromatic rings do not equal carcinogens.

 

[rico567]

Benzene by itself is bad, but there are "benzene" rings in many of the things we eat and drink. Aromatic rings do not equal carcinogens.

This is true. Apples can be put in a bag with bananas and will speed ripening, because apples evolve benzene....in tiny amounts. The foam in the dilute solution (1/4 oz per gallon water) of Star San is also pretty dilute, when you take that tiny amount of liquid an dilute it in 5 gallons of beer. I'm too lazy to actually crunch the numbers on how dilute the acid itself (assuming it survives) would be after this, but.....not much.

 

[tcbailey]

I think apples emit ethylene, not benzene.

 

[dlaramie08]

Most vegetables produce ethylene gas when ripening.

 

[GotPushrods]

If you're really worried about ((potentially) trace) amounts of benzene (containing compounds), you could just buy phosphoric acid by the drum and make your own non-foaming, surfactant-free sanitizer. It will be cheaper too.

But squeezing the bottle is fun. So are foam snakes.

 

[jbvaat]

This is an old thread but .. looking through it, seems people are talking about the KNOWN substances in StarSan but in the product MSDS you can see that 35% of the product includes something that is classified as 'trade secret'..
How can one trust this not to include anything bad? How can we judge its safety?

 

[dlaramie08]

This is an old thread but .. looking through it, seems people are talking about the KNOWN substances in StarSan but in the product MSDS you can see that 35% of the product includes something that is classified as 'trade secret'..
How can one trust this not to include anything bad? How can we judge its safety?

How many unidentified components are in a cup of coffee? Many people drink that undiluted. How many unidentified things are in the air we breathe? The point is that nothing is completely safe, there is risk involved in anything. If you don't want to risk using an approved food safe sanitizer then don't. It would be bad for their business if their product hurt the very people who are buying it, so it is in their best interest to make a safe product.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[jbvaat]

How many unidentified components are in a cup of coffee? Many people drink that undiluted. How many unidentified things are in the air we breathe?

I think coffee has been used since ages and every human ever existed has been breathing air. I'd say it's not fair to compare these with a chemical product that has existed a few decades and used much less.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting there must be something bad in Starsan, I'm just asking, why are people discussing only part of the story? 35% of the product is quite a lot and it's unknown. And even if it were less I'd still want to know because even 0,01% of some chemical can make a drastic difference in what the substance is or does. Just look at sulphur compounds or diacetyl or whatnot in your beer -- doesn't have to be a lot to make a difference.

 

[passedpawn]

This is an old thread but .. looking through it, seems people are talking about the KNOWN substances in StarSan but in the product MSDS you can see that 35% of the product includes something that is classified as 'trade secret'..
How can one trust this not to include anything bad? How can we judge its safety?

You can't. You'll have to assume that the products you use in this life are safe, based solely on faith. And, of course, any research available to you, like you're doing right now

We choose to live a life with a lot of conveniences. Airplanes, automobiles, packaged foods, medicine, electronics, etc. There's no way to assess the safety of each of them every time you use them. What you can do is ask yourself if it's probable that the item has been designed under the auspices of a regulatory agency.

The alternative is to move to the Pennsylvania woods, farm, eschew all the modernity of the last several centuries. If you do this, consider that the life expectancy back then was only about 40.

 

[m00ps]

Yeah I agree. If you are in this frame of mind, I feel like you should be much more concerned with just about every other aspect of your daily life. I'd bet you are thousands of times more likely to be harmed from your drinking water, or plugging in an electronic device, or crossing the street, or constantly breathing the dirty air inside your home...statistics are a scary thing. I say drink as much beer while you can