Storing Star San in Bottles?

[kgranger]

I am trying to experiment with different techniques to speed up bottling day. I'm thinking about sterilizing bottles beforehand, and storing them, thus cutting bottling day in half.
Basically I would clean them, soak with star san, empty, drip most of the star san out, foil the top of the bottle tight, and store in crates.

My question is: will the bottles keep sterilized over time if they still are wet with star san inside after I foil them?

I don't want to wait for them to drip dry completely before I foil and store, mainly because I'm convinced every time you breathe in my house you are swallowing a handful of dog hair, and I am afraid of some making its way into the bottles as they dry. Will the star san spoil or anything inside the bottle?

 

[m00ps]

that should be fine, I store starsan in a spray bottle and in kegs and I;ve heard as long as it still foams you're good.

But I dont see how it would save much time at all. Youd be spending so much more time the day before putting foil on all of them

Do you have a bottling tree? I just have a bucket of starsan and dunk bottles in 4 at a time and put them on the tree to drip. <5min to sanitize them all and they are still wet with foam when I fill them

 

[Fionnbharr]

As long as you've got a barrier -- like foil -- between the environment and the inside of the bottles, germs and bacteria and other creepy-crawlies won't get through into the sanitized bottles. Sealed properly, it'll remain sterile for millenia.

Louis Pasteur famously demonstrated that barriers keep living orgasms from growing on food, and presumably the insides of containers, too.

 

[kgranger]

I guess it technically is going to be the same amount of time in the end, I just sometimes put off bottling on the scheduled day because something comes up and I only have a few hours to do it, so having the bottles all ready to fill from a previous day will help me save time on the actual bottling day. putting off bottling day just means more time to wait before I can drink it, and thats no good

 

[fartinmartin]

I don't get all this storing star san stuff.
It's so cheap !
I mix one litre that's enought for the vinator to do six gallons of bottle and all the tubes , bottling stick etc.
I then have a spray bottle , that stays on my window sill, and very other piece of kit get a sqirt, you don't need total immersion !
So two litres will do a whole brew, why do you want to store any ? I only store what's LEFT in my spray bottle.

 

[adamranders]

I would think this really depends on how long before hand you plan to do this. As the residual starsan sits the active ingrediant will lose effectivness, and the air in the bottles from dumping the starsan out would contain the same contaminants that it did before, less what settles to the residual starsan before it loses effectivness. Fresh starsan in the bottles basically only sanitizes the surface and the air inside from dumping them out would be pushed out when filling. So once the inside surface dries any contaminants in the air in the bottles could take up refuge on the now dried surface. I am by no means an expert here but it doea seem logical that you would be increasing your riak of contamination there, I would agree that a bottle tree, and fresh starsan-ing is a better solution. And bottle trees are fairly cheap to buy or make.

 

[rekoob]

I kind of did the same thing you are talking about... almost.
I always rinsed the bottles out then covered them before I was going to use them.
When I wanted to use them I added a couple cups of starsan to the sprayer that sits on top of the bottle tree, would give them all a couple squirts and put them on the tree until full.
Then bottle/cap.
If you are going to stick with bottling I would recommend a bottle tree and the dish that mounts on top with the spray thing.
Makes bottling so much faster.

 

[m00ps]

I don't get all this storing star san stuff.
It's so cheap !
I mix one litre that's enought for the vinator to do six gallons of bottle and all the tubes , bottling stick etc.
I then have a spray bottle , that stays on my window sill, and very other piece of kit get a sqirt, you don't need total immersion !
So two litres will do a whole brew, why do you want to store any ? I only store what's LEFT in my spray bottle.

Yeah, I had people dinging me for going through an 8oz bottle each month. I'd rather spend 50 cents to ensure I've got fresh new starsan than dedicate a bucket to keep reusing old stuff and risk any of my batches

 

[eadavis80]

I got this and it cuts down SOME to my bottling day - not as much as I was hoping, but some: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/vinator-bottle-rinser.html

Before this, I would dump each bottle in a bucket of Star San solution, fill them up, wait two minutes and then dump the solution back into the Star San bucket and place on the bottling tree. Now, I just squirt each bottle a couple of times with the product posted above and at least it saves my back from having to bend over and fill/dump each bottle. It's not that much a time saver really, but it does make bottling day easier.