Starsan in my mead. Oops.

[rideincircles]

So I was making the cherry berry mead recipe in the recipe section, but was having some trouble with the 4184 mead yeast. After 48 hours after pitching it I had no activity. At this point it was 72 hours after making the must and I was beginning to worry about an infection and or mold if it sits around to long. So I decided to add some D47 since that was all I had and it would be 5 days since making it before I could have got some new 4184 to pitch in.

Anyways, I was adding some more honey and water last night before adding the D47, and noticed I grabbed my water jug filled with starsan solution and added somewhere over a pint to a quart of starsan to it. I meant to add myh spring water in the same type of jug. I tried scooping some out (maybe half of it), but some made it in. How will this affect my mead? I am assuming the PH may be altered.

Some other info regarding recipe.
13 lbs. texas wildflower honey (12 originally) may add 2 more for D47
12 lbs frozen strawberries
96 oz Cherry White Grape juice
2.75 gallons of water
16 oz starsan solution (estimated)
plan on doing 2 tsp of Fermax and energizer in 1/3's, 1st 1/3 added.
4184 and D47 yeast

Made must with frozen strawberries 1/19
Pitched Wyeast 4184 sweet mead yeast at 75 degrees 1/20
No activity 1/22 Pitched D47 and added water and 1 lb honey and starsan
1/23 D47 rolling along at 70 degrees and added to bucket with ice to cool below 70 degrees.
total volume around 6.5 gallons in 7.5 gallon bucket measued OG 1.092

My plan is to add 2 more pounds of honey to hopefully get it to finish sweeter and increase the OG to 1.1 at least.

At this point it's a fly by the pants recipe to see what happens. All input welcome.

 

[saramc]

That is phosphoric acid. For sanitizing you add one ounce to five gallons. No way I would consider ingesting this, it would be poison. You can easily access the MSDS by finding it on the web. You risk, no you will cause, burns to the mouth, esophagus and airway at that concentration.

 

[rideincircles]

It was not concentrated starsan. I have read plenty of forums that said people have forget to empty the starsan from their carboys with beer and it posed no issues. Just was wondering the difference in mead. I assume it may throw off the PH slightly. Phosphoric acid is also in sodas.

Edited my first post to clarify starsan solution.

In regards to actual starsan quantity: 1 oz starsan /640 oz (in 5 gallons) x 16 = 1/40 oz of starsan that went into batch of 800 oz of mead.

 

[Inner10]

That's a lot of acid sanitizer in there...I think you may have screwed your batch. A table spoon or two wouldn't hurt...but a quart...no wonder it isn't fermenting.

 

[thatjonguy]

It probably will be fine.

 

[kh54s10]

I would say that you have nothing to worry about. If you were going to add water I don't think the Starsan solution will kill your mead. It may change it for the worse but it is unlikely to ruin it. I have read repeated accounts of similar accidents in the beer section with little negative effect. There is a video somewhere of a Five Star employee drinking the Starsan solution.

 

[rideincircles]

D47 is chugging away with no issues. No clue why my 4184 failed (or I didn't RDWHAHB). If it ends up sucking from adding starsan, at least we will have the thread that says this is what happens. It's happened many times with beer up to 1/2 a gallon or more of starsan on numerous posts. I will check my PH meter tomorrow to see where it's at. I am guessing it was no more than a pint of starsan solution after I pulled out at least 24 oz from around where I had just poured the starsan in. That would be 1/50 of the total volume.

I added 2 lbs of honey tonight and aerated then measured 1.094 which means it either did not mix well enough or fermentation is plowing right through. I will target 1.060 as my cutoff point to stop aeration and my next batch of nutrients. Was hoping for above 1.1, but will let it roll.

I have a friend who brews crazy amounts of mead to ask direct questions, but I figure there is a huge pool of knowledge about this out there. I just didn't find any threads.

 

[saramc]

Ok, I feel much better knowing this was diluted solution. I would personally call the # on MSDS sheet and ask.

 

[TheBrewingMedic]

D47 is chugging away with no issues. No clue why my 4184 failed

4184 is a notoriously finicky high maintenance yeast, I tried it once and wasn't impressed. I much prefer dry yeasts and I'm also a huge fan of the Lalvin starains too.

 

[rideincircles]

I will just give an update that this mead turned out great and still exists. I have 20 or so bottles left, but after 4 years of aging, it seems like the acidity has mildly etched the bottles that I used for it.

Otherwise this mead has shown no signs of tapering with age yet, lots of strawberry and honey up front. Will check the PH at some point just to see how it fared on that front.