Star San

[user 47068]

As this product is highly recommended I thought I'd try it and I have a few questions about how to use it.

I have no probs with the ratios and made this little guide.

Star San
use 1oz to 5gallon

1OZ = 29.54ml
5 Gallon = 18.93 ltr
1 GALLON = 3.785 ltr
use 1.55ml to 1litre.

Anyway, my questions really are about it being NO RINSE.
I put star san in my fermenter and began filling it with water. After I'd put about 5 litres of water in I had a fermenter filled with foam.
Realising it would take forever to fill, I tipped it into a tub and swirled the fermenter and all parts around in the solution for a few minutes.
I still had a fermenter full of foam, so I rinsed the foam out then sprayed everything with a star san water mix in a spray bottle.
I'm also concerned about residual star san contaminating the brew, so I wiped the fermenter with a tissue and let the other fermenter parts air dry.

Any tips or advice will be helpful, thanks.

 

[indica86]

I have it in a spray bottle and use it that way.

 

[ScottyDoesntKnow]

Mate you don't need to fill the fermenter, a few mls into a couple of litres of water, put the lid on the fermenter and give it a good shake, let it sit for 5-10 mins, tip it out give it a good shake out and you are good to go.

 

[slcmorro]

Don't fear the foam.

 

[kalbarluke]

As stated already, you only need a few hundred mLs in your fermenter, shake the hell out of it so it foams then you can throw it out or recycle it. I make a 15 L batch of star san and keep it in a cube. It lasts me a long time.

Don't fear the foam.

 

[SBOB]

1) dont fear the foam... it wont ruin your beer
2) just use a small amount and make sure it covers the sides... either tip in a few 100mL and shake or use a spray bottle and spray all over..a 1L spray container with ~2mL of starsan will be plenty to sanitise anything you need for a brew day if its in a spray bottle
3) see tip 1
4) seriously, see tip 1

 

[bevan]

+1 tip 1)

 

[manticle]

It just needs to contact the surface for 30 secs or more. Spray or rinse with a litre or so (which can then be reused).

 

[user 47068]

Awesome.
Thanks.

 

[Maheel]

i love watching the foam come up and out of a keg when i fill it with beer after starsaning .

it's a kind of brew porn....... :blink:

 

[mstrelan]

I'd be mostly concerned about the tissue contaminating the beer.

 

[woodwormm]

all sound advice,

remember Phos acid is the acid in coke... aka we (some - not I) drink it

Phos Acid is also used in commercial beer production, not always as a sanitiser, often as a PH adjuster, it's a great food safe acid, of course you're not going to drink it concentrated, but really really really really diluted it's ok.

 

[Kev R]

I generally don't put the starsan in until whatever I'm filling is almost full.
If you don't like the foam they make a non foaming version called saniclean. I use it to fill my keg then drive it out with c02 before filling with beer

 

[tomdavis]

+1 for not fearing the foam.
StarSan is excellent stuff. Mix at 1.5ml per litre.

Lasts for ages, provided the pH of the diluted mixture is less than 3.

Any foam left in your fermenter will lose it's acidity and become neutral in the fermentation, becoming phosphates which the yeast will happily consume.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

As this product is highly recommended I thought I'd try it and I have a few questions about how to use it.


Star San
use 1oz to 5gallon

1OZ = 29.54ml
5 Gallon = 18.93 ltr
1 GALLON = 3.785 ltr
use 1.55ml to 1litre.

Or simply observe that there are 128 fluid ounces in a US Gallon so the ratio is 1/640.

I use 1 in 500 but I always rinse.

BTW I've found two excellent uses for Starsan recently: de-skankifying bidons that have formed "bottle brew" and cleaning the outside of wine barrels that are have been kept in a humid environment (in the case I had to deal with yesterday they'd been in a coolroom with poor drainage for a couple of months).

 

[barls]

have a listen here
HERE

 

[stm]

2 litres of solution only requires 3 millilitres of Starsan. That's all you need to ensure all surfaces are contacted. (Same amount at bottling/kegging time.)

 

[Bridges]

If you have kids the syringe that comes with kids panadol is spot on for measuring / mixing your starsan

 

[mattyh77]

Got a 6ml one for 50c from the chemist.

 

[sp0rk]

I acquired a couple of 1ml ones from our pharmacy at work, that way I can be super accurate (that and there were millions of them...)