I can't bleach it's not StarSan

[DarrenTheDrunk]

So in summary of all that has gone before. I'm sure we can all agree on these:

Keep it clean and sanitary.
Use something that works.
Use something that is cheap.
Don't use chlorine bleach on stainless.

Works for me.

I agree 10000000000% . I buggered up a keg using chlorine but no worried cos I use this keg to sanitize the other kegs and the entire line the the beer travels "beer trail" like audit trail ( yes yes yes... I am one of those boring bloody accountants) but your point is spot on MashBasher

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Lads, lads, lads. Get serious.

I freeze my keg to -260C using liquid nitrogen. Then flush with nitrous oxide. I push the flushed gas up into my 351 XY GTHO Falcon for a standing 10.9 quarter mile.

Following this simple procedure, I ensure a closed transfer using non-GMO, fully vegan line that has also been flushed with liquid helium.

There is a lot of gas with this approach, but it’s very noble.

in the voice of "Cheek and Chong" for you older brewers..."man...that sounds just so cool man...get me some of that **** and I will try it man...pass me the bong man..."

 

[DarrenTheDrunk]

Haaa, foaming sanitiser, the elephant in the room, "don't fear the foam" yeh fair call, but what about all that air/oxygen that's in the bubbles???
Pot stirred.

very good point my old lost friend...!!!

 

[kadmium]

If you want to know when Star San is no longer effective either check the PH using a digital PH meter or... it looks like this...

Don't ask me how guys, but managed to suck a full load of gelatine into my star san keg while trying to purge the bottle...

Never said I was smart.

But that's what bad starsan looks like.

 

[zoigl]

Wow, My post clearly got a few fellow drinkers active on this sit e which is NEVER a bad thing. zoilg, my questions is, how many times can you do this and how or when do you know the product is not from age...not effective

Normally, I don't keep it more than the day of brewing, I use filtered tap water.
I keep a 10 litre keg of my mix to flush the beer lines after each session. I use boiled rain water for this mix.
For general spraying around during brew/kegging days, I use distilled water. I do a litmus tests regularly, and will not use cloudy mixes.

 

[yankinoz]

D the D:

I'll be cranky and throw in a few points about chlorine, by which I assume everyone means chlorine bleach, @ 5% sodium hypochlorite solution. It is highly effective against a broad spectrum (Star-San is not great against wild yeasts) and cheap. Its drawbacks: (1) some knowledgeable brewers, including Palmer, maintain the chlorine gets adsorbed into the plastics used in brewing and builds up there, though that does not apply to glass. (2) Most of the chlorine bleach solutions contain detergents that persist even on glass. Unfortunately, that seems to be particularly true of Australian brands, e..g., I found Clorox in the US did not foam on shaking, but in Australia it does. White King is especially problematic that way. I've found brands at Aldi that foam very little, use them in bottling only and rinse well.

 

[scomet]

for the dodecylbenzenesulfonic to sanitise/kill bacteria.

I was told by an eminent chemist “thats just soap”

Darren, 10 is good 20 is better doesn't work, especially with chemicals, its all to do with dilute molecule size, same with weed killers… (10 works, 20 may-not)

Starsan Rocks, good thread btw.

 

[peterlonz]

Star San as cheap as reported here? Well not in Australia.
But lets have the links to the lower priced suppliers.....................................please
Also something definitive about longevity both "as supplied, non diluted" & (as apparently frequently used) diluted.

BTW bleach haters who have never used the stuff - stop knocking something that works. If you happen to have an infection that's hard to track down - try undiluted bleach & allow 5 minutes exposure.
Fortunately most posting here are unlikely to face severe infections.

 

[Grmblz]

in the voice of "Cheek and Chong" for you older brewers..."man...that sounds just so cool man...get me some of that **** and I will try it man...pass me the bong man..."

"that's some heavy **** man" - "yeh, kinda grabs you by the boo boo dont it"

 

[Nullnvoid]

Star San as cheap as reported here? Well not in Australia.
But lets have the links to the lower priced suppliers.....................................please
Also something definitive about longevity both "as supplied, non diluted" & (as apparently frequently used) diluted.

BTW bleach haters who have never used the stuff - stop knocking something that works. If you happen to have an infection that's hard to track down - try undiluted bleach & allow 5 minutes exposure.
Fortunately most posting here are unlikely to face severe infections.

StellarSan Sanitiser 500ml - (Phosphoric Based) (similar to StarSan) - $6.95 for 500ml
https://www.keg-king.com.au/atomic-15-foaming-sanitiser-orange.html $12.95 for 500ml
Star San - Clever Brewing Home Brew Beer Supplies - $34.95 for 500ml (this equates to 10cents per litre)
STARSAN Quality Home Brewing Supplies and Equipment, Adelaide - South Australia. We ship to your door Australia Wide. - $48.90 for 500ml (this equates to 7cents per litre)

You get the idea.

Undiluted I don't think it has a used by date. And diluted I think it depends on your water (hard/soft, rain, mains, snow etc)

But even if you use a litre each time to do kegs/fermenters etc that still 333.33333 doses per bottle.

How does that compare to how you use bleach?

 

[kadmium]

Star San as cheap as reported here? Well not in Australia.
But lets have the links to the lower priced suppliers.....................................please
Also something definitive about longevity both "as supplied, non diluted" & (as apparently frequently used) diluted.

BTW bleach haters who have never used the stuff - stop knocking something that works. If you happen to have an infection that's hard to track down - try undiluted bleach & allow 5 minutes exposure.
Fortunately most posting here are unlikely to face severe infections.

Why would you say bleach is better? It boggles my mind that you would sanitise something with bleach "because it's more effective" and then rinse the crap out of it with tap water. Good one. I might as well just rinse all my stuff with plain tap water.

The advantage of Star San is that it's NO RINSE. As in, you don't rinse it.

And, as stated multiple times, bleach isn't an issue for glass. Sure, use it on your bottles that's great. But the OP mentioned using it on kegs. Bleach and stainless steel do NOT mix. In fact, I believe OP even stated he has ruined one of his kegs using bleach.

You know what works on Plastic, Glass, Stainless, Rubber, Nylon, **** almost any surface? Star San (or it's equivalent like Atomic 15 foaming) so no, I don't intend on using bleach.

As for the links to cheap products, the Australian made Atomic 15 Foaming cleaner from Keg King is $13 for 500ml with 1.5ml making 1 L of solution, which equates to 750 litres of solution.

Storage for undiluted is indefinite, and for premade solution depending on storage conditions anywhere from weeks to months.

 

[Nullnvoid]

Umm I don't mean to deviate off topic, but @GrumpyPaul or @philrob can we change the topic title. This is a worthwhile discussion and I think it deserves a better title.

Something like "Starsan Vs The other ****" or "How good is Star San", or "I can't bleach it's not StarSan" Heheheh, actually that last one made me LOL. I pick that.

But seriously, maybe a topic title more relevent.

 

[butisitart]

there's lot's of songs about it
brew my beer with a bottle of star san (cold chisel)
i was starsan struck (acka dacka)
there's a starsan waiting in the sink (david bowie)

and movies
starsan: the bottles bounce back
starsan and jane

 

[MashBasher]

there's lot's of songs about it, and movies

Oh man,

Pretty (Blonde) Woman
PBW
“Plug me in” by PBW

“Song for Zula” by Phosphorescent
“The Phosphorus Rap”

Oh, Jesus, stop me! This is too much farkin’ fun...

 

[GalBrew]

Arguing over the merits of StarSan makes me feel like it's 2010 again.

 

[peterlonz]

Why would you say bleach is better? It boggles my mind that you would sanitise something with bleach "because it's more effective" and then rinse the crap out of it with tap water. Good one. I might as well just rinse all my stuff with plain tap water.

The advantage of Star San is that it's NO RINSE. As in, you don't rinse it.

And, as stated multiple times, bleach isn't an issue for glass. Sure, use it on your bottles that's great. But the OP mentioned using it on kegs. Bleach and stainless steel do NOT mix. In fact, I believe OP even stated he has ruined one of his kegs using bleach.

You know what works on Plastic, Glass, Stainless, Rubber, Nylon, **** almost any surface? Star San (or it's equivalent like Atomic 15 foaming) so no, I don't intend on using bleach.

As for the links to cheap products, the Australian made Atomic 15 Foaming cleaner from Keg King is $13 for 500ml with 1.5ml making 1 L of solution, which equates to 750 litres of solution.

Storage for undiluted is indefinite, and for premade solution depending on storage conditions anywhere from weeks to months.

Clearly you have not bothered to read what has been said. Not unusual for the anti- bleach people who can't even acknowledge the cheapest source of bleach is "liquid chlorine" bought at any pool shop (smallest qty usually 5 or 10 litres) great around the house ( dishwasher clean out etc, sanitise whatever you have & it does not foam or build up in plastics. Is Star San better? Probably generally, but mainly because bleach needs care in handling (safety specs minimum) but also because rinsing out bleach needs to be done with either hot tap water or 0.5 micron filtered cold tap water. I'm repeating for those non readers
The cost of Star San puts me off: here we see reported (by Nullnvoid) price per litre varying from 14 Dlrs/litre to 98 Dlrs/litre. Unless Nullnvoid misreported only the highest cost stuff is genuine Star San.
For gods sake if you like Star San keep using it but don't present BS to make a case against chlorine bleach which did & will always works.

 

[kadmium]

Clearly you have not bothered to read what has been said. Not unusual for the anti- bleach people who can't even acknowledge the cheapest source of bleach is "liquid chlorine" bought at any pool shop (smallest qty usually 5 or 10 litres) great around the house ( dishwasher clean out etc, sanitise whatever you have & it does not foam or build up in plastics. Is Star San better? Probably generally, but mainly because bleach needs care in handling (safety specs minimum) but also because rinsing out bleach needs to be done with either hot tap water or 0.5 micron filtered cold tap water. I'm repeating for those non readers
The cost of Star San puts me off: here we see reported (by Nullnvoid) price per litre varying from 14 Dlrs/litre to 98 Dlrs/litre. Unless Nullnvoid misreported only the highest cost stuff is genuine Star San.
For gods sake if you like Star San keep using it but don't present BS to make a case against chlorine bleach which did & will always works.

I think you have been drinking the bleach.

a) It. Corrodes. Stainless. Steel.
b) You need a specialised filter to rinse it? no thanks
c) You can't rinse everything with hot water, and hot water is not sanitary
d) PET Fermenters can't be rinsed with hot water anyway, nor PET bottles for bottling
d) Star San is the name given to generic acid based cleaners, Atomic 15 Sanitiser is 500ml UNDILUTED. It makes over 700 litres of product. It costs 17c per litre once made up. Put 3 grams less hops if you're so concerned about money.

So, if you want to use Bleach or liquid chlorine or what ever it is, go for it. But don't suggest new brewers try and save 4c / L.

Acid based, no rinse sanitisers are great. If you don't like foaming, use idophor jfc

 

[paulyg]

Clearly you have not bothered to read what has been said. Not unusual for the anti- bleach people who can't even acknowledge the cheapest source of bleach is "liquid chlorine" bought at any pool shop (smallest qty usually 5 or 10 litres) great around the house ( dishwasher clean out etc, sanitise whatever you have & it does not foam or build up in plastics. Is Star San better? Probably generally, but mainly because bleach needs care in handling (safety specs minimum) but also because rinsing out bleach needs to be done with either hot tap water or 0.5 micron filtered cold tap water. I'm repeating for those non readers
The cost of Star San puts me off: here we see reported (by Nullnvoid) price per litre varying from 14 Dlrs/litre to 98 Dlrs/litre. Unless Nullnvoid misreported only the highest cost stuff is genuine Star San.
For gods sake if you like Star San keep using it but don't present BS to make a case against chlorine bleach which did & will always works.

How many ml of liquid chlorine would you need to add to 1 liter of water for effective sanitising?

 

[butisitart]

I think you have been drinking the bleach.

d) Star San is the name given to generic acid based cleaners, Atomic 15 Sanitiser is 500ml UNDILUTED. It makes over 700 litres of product. It costs 17c per litre once made up. Put 3 grams less hops if you're so concerned about money.

Acid based, no rinse sanitisers are great. If you don't like foaming, use idophor jfc

d) i get to waste less hops woo-hoo bonus

i love the foamy bit. bit like bubble bath. it's a good indicator of if you've got enough / too much in the dilute. (or omo in the washing machine). dunno how much ml is in 6-7 droplets in a bottle plunger. never thought to measure it.

 

[kadmium]

How many ml of liquid chlorine would you need to add to 1 liter of water for effective sanitising?

I think the concentration for food safe is around 15ml for 4 liters, which is call it 4ml / l so 5L will make 1,250L of the stuff. That makes it 12c a Liter. Compared to a no rinse, food safe, acid based, non corrosive sanitiser that costs 17c L.... my mind boggles at the sheer stubbornness of some