storing star san in a corney

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It will be fine at the standard dilution. The stainless used for kegs is of sufficient quality. If if is for long term storage I would consider making the starsan with di/ro/distilled water. StarSan mixed with standard tap water has a tendency lose acidity and effectiveness to the dissolved minerals.
 
yeah. Starsan is acidic. bad for stainless steel in the long term.

I use a 4 gallon plastic water cube.

The acid in bar keeper's friend re-passivates stainless steel

Coca-cola / Pepsi cola are both extremely acidic and they have used corny kegs for decades.

I also store my Star-san in cornies and never had a problem or an infection
 
Star San in corny mixed at 6 ml per gallon of Distilled water stores fine and can be reused for many months. I've gone 5 months before I needed the SS corny for production... No issue looks the same as it did when the star san was mixed and put in...
 
I think he is talking about a water cooler jug.

My concern with storing star san this way is, Im thinking that there could be a potential for corrosion
 
Does starsan do anything to plastic? I have some in an ale pail at the moment.

Northern Brewer says "It is safe for use on all surfaces, but use caution since it is an acid; contact with soft metals, rubber, and plastic should be kept to a minimum."

Is this just propaganda to discourage reuse and encourage buying more? Or are they possibly assuming you haven't diluted it yet?

Link: http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/brewing-equipment/cleaning-chemicals-equipment/sanitation-cleaning/star-san.html
 
Does starsan do anything to plastic? I have some in an ale pail at the moment.

Northern Brewer says "It is safe for use on all surfaces, but use caution since it is an acid; contact with soft metals, rubber, and plastic should be kept to a minimum."

Is this just propaganda to discourage reuse and encourage buying more? Or are they possibly assuming you haven't diluted it yet?

Link: http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/brewing-equipment/cleaning-chemicals-equipment/sanitation-cleaning/star-san.html

I keep my StarSan in a white plastic five-gallon bucket. One day, I come down from my bedroom and notice that the cardboard I had placed it on was soaking wet. The bucket had been sitting undisturbed for at least a week. About the best I can surmise is that the StarSan, diluted, does weaken plastic, and that it weakened it enough to cause it to leak.
 
I keep my StarSan in a white plastic five-gallon bucket. One day, I come down from my bedroom and notice that the cardboard I had placed it on was soaking wet. The bucket had been sitting undisturbed for at least a week. About the best I can surmise is that the StarSan, diluted, does weaken plastic, and that it weakened it enough to cause it to leak.

are you using the recommended no-rinse ratio of 30mL(2 tbsp) per 5 gallons? concentrated it is shipped in plane jane high density polyethelene (milk jugs).

does your bucket have a leak? where in relation to the fluid level, how long has it had contact, how big of a hole?
 
I'm no chemist, but it comes UNdiluted in a regular hpde #2 container. It doesn't eat it's way through that. I don't see how there's much chance of it destroying an hpde fermenter bucket or a stainless steel keg when diluted. I store mine in kegs - no trouble in over 2 years so far....
 
are you using the recommended no-rinse ratio of 30mL(2 tbsp) per 5 gallons? concentrated it is shipped in plane jane high density polyethelene (milk jugs).

does your bucket have a leak? where in relation to the fluid level, how long has it had contact, how big of a hole?

Yes, I use the recommended ratio (1 tbsp per 2.5 gallons of distilled water), and I always add acid to water, as I learned in Chemistry class so many years ago.

I was using the same bucket for about eight months with no issues. The leak that was created was on the bottom of the bucket; 100% contact time for eight months.
 
Corny kegs were designed specificaly to hold dilue solutions of phosphoric acid.

Read the label of a Coke or Pepsi and look at the ingredients.
 
I'm no chemist, but it comes UNdiluted in a regular hpde #2 container. It doesn't eat it's way through that. I don't see how there's much chance of it destroying an hpde fermenter bucket or a stainless steel keg when diluted. I store mine in kegs - no trouble in over 2 years so far....

...so you're telling me that this didn't happen? You're telling me that I imagined the wet cardboard, the liquid all over the slate tile floor, the stains on the tile that got me bitched out?

Sorry, but I know what happened, and I can't explain it, but it happened.
 
...so you're telling me that this didn't happen? You're telling me that I imagined the wet cardboard, the liquid all over the slate tile floor, the stains on the tile that got me bitched out?

Sorry, but I know what happened, and I can't explain it, but it happened.

Did the bucket have a bottling spigot?

I could see it possibly affecting the spigot, as its a pretty delicate piece.
 
How old was the bucket before you put the starsan in it? Maybe it was getting brittle anyway?

Coke is loaded with phosphoric acid. I think the pH is in the 2-4 pH range. StarSan is a blend of phosphoric acid and dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid. Proper dilution of starsan is supposed to be below 3 pH. So, unless there is something particular about dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid, I don't see how it could be bad for a corny, again, assuming it's properly diluted.

On a related topic: has anyone notice a recent change in the StarSan formula? I've had two bottles of the stuff over the past year. Different labels, and my new bottle has a different "smell" once it's diluted and in use (almost like rotten eggs). Also, I don't get as much foam as I used to. I'm wondering if I got a bum batch, or if there is something else going on there...

Edit: Found my answer here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/star-san-vs-star-san-hb-113446/ I have the StarSan HB I think...
 
...so you're telling me that this didn't happen? You're telling me that I imagined the wet cardboard, the liquid all over the slate tile floor, the stains on the tile that got me bitched out?

Sorry, but I know what happened, and I can't explain it, but it happened.

my guess is it affected the soft o-ring that seals the inside spigot 'nut' to the bucket.

Star-san says on the bottle its not good on real soft metals and other soft materials...like that rubber gasket.
 
my guess is it affected the soft o-ring that seals the inside spigot 'nut' to the bucket.

Star-san says on the bottle its not good on real soft metals and other soft materials...like that rubber gasket.

No, no spigot here-- just a regular five-gallon white plastic bucket, purchased at bLowe's...
 
I saw a YouTube posting last night, and a guy had setup a corny cleaning system using a plastic pesticide sprayer for his StarSan. Obviously he had bought it new, so no residue to worry about.

He removed the sprayer end and replaced it with a beverage ball lock qd. He would pressurize the sprayer to shoot the sanitizer into the "out" side of the keg, then when done sanitizing, would put the gas back on the keg to transfer the StarSan back to the sprayer.

Sort of wandered OT there, but the point is the spray bottle was plastic, and no apparent storage issues.
 
I'm no chemist, but it comes UNdiluted in a regular hpde #2 container. It doesn't eat it's way through that. I don't see how there's much chance of it destroying an hpde fermenter bucket or a stainless steel keg when diluted. I store mine in kegs - no trouble in over 2 years so far....

Polyolfins (and in fact many plastics) are sensitive to surfactants. ESC (Environmental Stress Cracking) is a failure of plastic when molded-in stresses are eventually relieved by a weakening of polymer-polymer bonds which leads to a crack. Those molded-in stresses are a function of the quality of the molding process (how fast is the mold filled, how fast is it cooled, the average chain length of the polymer, if the operator was still drunk from the night before, etc.) Exposure to surfactants can accelerate the cracking process dramatically...so much so that an industry-standard test method uses a soak in a surfactant to quickly test for stress cracking.

Since starsan is basically phosphoric acid and a surfactant, I could imagine a situation where long exposure caused a leak in a bucket. I can also easily imagine that one person could have never had a problem while another developed a leak, even if they were using a bucket from the same manufacturer. Unfortunately, there's really no good way to know if your bucket is more or less susceptible (although if you see visible flow lines or weld lines radiating from the gate region I'd be wary.)

The plastic top to my concentrated starsan container has cracked, so I've got some personal empirical evidence that starsan can have this effect. I store diluted sanitizer soultion in an older corny keg and would recommend that over a plastic container. (BTW, I r a chemical engineer and have had several not-so-enjoyable work experiences battling ESC in surfactant storage containers.)
 
Polyolfins (and in fact many plastics) are sensitive to surfactants. ESC (Environmental Stress Cracking) is a failure of plastic when molded-in stresses are eventually relieved by a weakening of polymer-polymer bonds which leads to a crack. Those molded-in stresses are a function of the quality of the molding process (how fast is the mold filled, how fast is it cooled, the average chain length of the polymer, if the operator was still drunk from the night before, etc.) Exposure to surfactants can accelerate the cracking process dramatically...so much so that an industry-standard test method uses a soak in a surfactant to quickly test for stress cracking.

Since starsan is basically phosphoric acid and a surfactant, I could imagine a situation where long exposure caused a leak in a bucket. I can also easily imagine that one person could have never had a problem while another developed a leak, even if they were using a bucket from the same manufacturer. Unfortunately, there's really no good way to know if your bucket is more or less susceptible (although if you see visible flow lines or weld lines radiating from the gate region I'd be wary.)

The plastic top to my concentrated starsan container has cracked, so I've got some personal empirical evidence that starsan can have this effect. I store diluted sanitizer soultion in an older corny keg and would recommend that over a plastic container. (BTW, I r a chemical engineer and have had several not-so-enjoyable work experiences battling ESC in surfactant storage containers.)

I think this is the answer we have been waiting for.
 
indeed.. diluted star san eats plastic buckets, but concentrated star san comes packaged in plastic...hmm.

So you're telling me that I imagined that my bucket spung a leak and pissed StarSan all over my floor? Thanks. How silly of me to believe what I witnessed with my own eyes.

Also, you do realize
 
I don't know how you get me saying you have a tendency to hallucinate from my post..but if you want me to elaborate, what you could have inferred from my post was that the leak could have been cause by another source.

Perhaps the bucket was dropped at some point, or from all the times of setting it down when it was filled with gallons of liquid it eventually developed a fracture from the stress, or maybe it was a manufacturing defect. All I was saying was star-san comes packaged in plastic, and I have never seen a report of anyones star-san bottle starting to leak because the acid ate it, so it seems unlikely that it ate your plastic.

Did you ever try and locate the point of the leak? I would think that its source could be telling as to how it happened.
 
I have star-san in its original container that has ben on my shelf for 3 years and it hasn't leaked out yet.
And I keep diluted star-san in my bottling bucket 24/7/12. I have used this bucket for the past 4 years, storing star-san and it is just as good as new.
Just my personal experience.
 
I keep diluted star-san in a spray bottle, and a gallon mixed up in an old plastic apple juice (apfelwein anybody?) jug at all times without any problems. I clean and sanitize kegs immediately after they get drained and leave a few cups of star-san in them until I fill them again. However, the cap on my star-san concentrate did crack early on. Since I use a spray bottle and the "slosh method" (put a few cups of sanitizer in a car-boy or keg and "slosh" it around), my bottle of concentrated star-san appears to be a lifetime supply unless I need to buy another just to get a new cap.
 
indeed.. diluted star san eats plastic buckets said:
indeed.. diluted star san eats plastic buckets, but concentrated star san comes packaged in plastic...hmm.

Believe what you will, I guess. Perhaps you know more about polymers, molding, surfactants and such than I do.

But just some food for thought...detergents (like Tide) are sold in plastic containers all the time. But surfactant-accelerated ESC is a well-known phenomena in the plastics business. It's all about the exact polymer, how it is molded, what additives were used, etc.

I suspect most people won't have a problem with storing an surfactant in a plastic container. But it is certainly possible for something like starsan to cause leaks in some plastic containers.
 
Starsan may be acidic but at std. dilution in a corny it doesnt hurt anything. I have left a normal starsan solution in a corny for close to a year. I actually prefer to leave like a half gal in my empty cornys because it wont alloy any bacteria to grow in them. Love it!
 
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