What Sanitiser To Use

[manticle]

More importantly I dismantle and clean everything including the taps between brews.

Shouldn't be underestimated.

 

[marlow_coates]

Brewerpete, is this no rinse?
Or do you give it a rinse with hot water or otherwise after being soaked in this solution?

On a side note, hearing about how many lovely glass carboys you had in another thread a few weeks (months?) ago, inspired me to upgrade. Got 2x 23L glass carboys for $45 each, as well as a glass demijohn 5L for starters.
Only other bit of equipment was a hose for tranfering the fluids, and some thought into placement of carboys to best utilise gravity.
Only plastic left is my bottling bucket.

With so few parts, and moving bits, it has been much easier to get everything clean, and trust I have gotten every area any bugs can be hiding.

Marlow

 

[b_thomas]

Recently peeved after purchasing no-name (Woolworth's Homebrand) Bleach and Nappy sanitiser to find they were both lemon scented even though there was no labelling to indicate as such. Unfortunately there's no Franklins up my way so I can't go back to the No-Frills which actually state whether perfumes are used.

In my last batch I used the last of my Country Brewer PSR and their no rinse spray sanitiser (1% Phosphoric acid once diluted).

I think it makes good sense to mix and match your regime to keep the bugs off guard.

Mind you though, making sure your clothes don't have cat fur on them is always a winner too!

 

[pdilley]

Marlow yes that is no rinse. Sometimes I rinse it anyway and sometimes I don't and leave it, either way I get same results.

Edit: FYI all my bottles get soaked in this universal solution and just hung up on the bottle tree to drip dry with no rinsing ever done to them.

Edit2: I have the big bent carboy brush in my arsenal as well if needed.

Good deal on the glass. Easy to clean when you do it after racking or emptying. Just a slosh of water and pretty much everything is out. You can get a faucet attachment and a length of hose and make a super blaster! using the hose to get all up inside if you want. Then leaving it in it's basket or agaist a towel on the edge of counter have fun next to the sink or on bathroom floor if it has a drain or outside. I was lazy this time and just ordered one from the States with a bunch of brew gear including stainless steel racking canes ($12) and allsorts of goodies harder to find locally like sparkaloid.

I use my plastic as the bottling bucket.

If you tie up that 5 litre with a JAO Mead or a small batch then the 2 litre juice left over containers make for decent trub/yeast collectors and starter containers in a pinch.


Cheers,
Brewer Pete

 

[Brewman_]

I have used most of the products discussed. I proudly had never had an infection for over 10 years, in Sydney, even without using some of these better products, for many years I just used Sodium metabisulphate.

This year in April - May I lost about 6 brews one after the other. I tried, SO2, Pink Stain, Starsan, Boiling water and Unscented Bleach in a methodical manner. Then stopped using liquid yeast, went to dry yeast and bought a new fermenter, tap spoon and airlock, (Kept the old ones though).

Throughout all of this I still had an infection. I actually carried heaps of gear to the bin and was about to chuck it all away - but I didn't.

I changed my brewing location and from June onwards, no sign of the infection. I have not gone back to the old location in the shed / laundry, not game. I now have used all of the old gear and liquid yeast saved with no problems.

After this I conclude that there is sometimes something in the air that causes issues that none of these mentioned sanitisers can protect against - absolutely happy to be corrected and informed. I actually bumped into a fellow brewer at the LHBS with a sample beer with the same issue, will never forget the smell, with almost the same story. He was using dry yeast and was throwing a heap if premium yeast in the bin. Interestingly the time frames of his brewing were within a few weeks or a month of mine.

I now use, Pink Stain, Starsan, Boiling water, unscented bleach, and a few other products and find they are all good for certain purposes. After all I bought them all trying to fix the problem I had.

Anyone else had this?


Fear_n_Loath

 

[DJR]

+1 Iodophor, haven't yet used starsan though. Iodophor is cheap and makes sure i don't suffer from radiation fallout among other things

Just use 1 or 2 mL in with 1-2L water and shake the crap out of the fermenter for a minute or two that is all it needs - 250mL will last AGES using this method

 

[jdsaint]

I have just started to use the 10ml bleech (unscented from coles) to 5L of water and 10ml of vinegar to CLEAN my fermenter, then it drip drys for around 10-15mins and rinsed with hot water tank water, let dry again, spray some country brewer liquid sanitiser in and around the fermenter (no rinse) let dry and their you go, sanitiser is mixed with 1L of water to 10ml sanitiser!

Does anyone know how long this will last mixed together in spray bottle? as I have about 900ml left still in spray bottle?

 

[QldKev]

Another starsan user; also sometimes I use the bleach / vinegar mix, but I don't measure 10ml, I use more like 50-100ml bleach and same again with vinegar, soak and drian then a good hosing out. I would be careful rinsing with tap water if you were on rainwater.

QldKev

 

[lespaul]

Does anyone know where to get cheap 'Herlisil'?

 

[Pennywise]

Starsan all the way :beerbang: Love the foam in the fermenter

 

[Fourstar]

Starsan followed closely by Iodophor FTW! The benifits of no rinse are.... No RINSE.

Give the fermenter a good old'e shake out, fill her up and ferment away, can't get any easier than that. Not to mention startsan @ 1.5ml per L of water, a bottle will last you a couple of years, even if you are heavy handed with it!

 

[jimi]

I have used most of the products discussed. I proudly had never had an infection for over 10 years, in Sydney, even without using some of these better products, for many years I just used Sodium metabisulphate.

This year in April - May I lost about 6 brews one after the other. I tried, SO2, Pink Stain, Starsan, Boiling water and Unscented Bleach in a methodical manner. Then stopped using liquid yeast, went to dry yeast and bought a new fermenter, tap spoon and airlock, (Kept the old ones though).

Throughout all of this I still had an infection. I actually carried heaps of gear to the bin and was about to chuck it all away - but I didn't.

I changed my brewing location and from June onwards, no sign of the infection. I have not gone back to the old location in the shed / laundry, not game. I now have used all of the old gear and liquid yeast saved with no problems.

After this I conclude that there is sometimes something in the air that causes issues that none of these mentioned sanitisers can protect against - absolutely happy to be corrected and informed. I actually bumped into a fellow brewer at the LHBS with a sample beer with the same issue, will never forget the smell, with almost the same story. He was using dry yeast and was throwing a heap if premium yeast in the bin. Interestingly the time frames of his brewing were within a few weeks or a month of mine.

I now use, Pink Stain, Starsan, Boiling water, unscented bleach, and a few other products and find they are all good for certain purposes. After all I bought them all trying to fix the problem I had.

Anyone else had this?


Fear_n_Loath

I recall Ray or someone else from the IBU's blaming a tree fern near by during an outdoor brewing session for the infections they got. I have a bunch of them around the brew shed and keep the doors closed all the time just in case. I keep my shed painfully neat and clean.

oh and nappy san (sodium percarbonate) and star san clean all my kegs & ferms

 

[petesbrew]

Good old bleach & vinegar solution works well in my brewery. Occasionally use iodophor too.
Only ever had a problem when i used homebrand nappisan, which i later found was lemon scented.
I had about 5 ruined brews in a row after that mistake.

 

[Bribie G]

Starsan.

Unfortunately the site sponsor that I purchase it from appears to be out until the end of October.

Yup, however I got a large bottle from Grain & Grape about a month ago but they may well be in the same position as CraftBrewer by now. At the mercy of the USA suppliers I guess.

I used to be a bleacher but it's very sticky and needs rinsing three or four times. Starsan is great and any residue left in bottles or fermenters is also a good yeast nutrient.

 

[Pennywise]

Good old bleach & vinegar solution works well in my brewery. Occasionally use iodophor too.
Only ever had a problem when i used homebrand nappisan, which i later found was lemon scented.
I had about 5 ruined brews in a row after that mistake.

You know I don't think I'm convinced that the lemon scented stuff makes any difference, I accidently used used it for about a month with no ill effects, so now I just use it anyway if I haven't got any scent free stuff. Prolly used it about 15 times now and haven't noticed anything different. Knock on wood.

 

[MarkBastard]

I've been using that baby bottle sanitiser stuff you can get from the supermarket, but I've just realised the contact time is meant to be like 15 minutes and I'm not doing it for anywhere near that amount of time, so I think I'll switch to starsan, and maybe use the existing stuff when I need to soak something.

I have a question, when you talk about a contact time of say 1 minute, is spraying it onto a vertical surface good enough? Or do you need solid liquid in contact and thus would have to very slowly rotate a keg so that all sides are in contact for 1 minute at some point.

 

[jonocarroll]

Starsan is great and any residue left in bottles or fermenters is also a good yeast nutrient.

Is this true? I know Iodophor has human nutritional benefit in small quantities (being iodine) such as in sanitised bottles, but I haven't heard anything like that for Starsan. I would have thought you could kill yeast with Starsan residue (not that you'll kill a lot diluted to 23L).

I s'pose I'll chime in then.

I use Starsan for sanitising fermenters and no-chill cubes, Iodophor for sanitising bottles, kegs (since it's less foamy) and generally spraying. Iodophor will turn some plastics yellow over time (appearance is the only thing affected) so I keep it away from my spot-free fermenters.

 

[Pennywise]

I have a question, when you talk about a contact time of say 1 minute, is spraying it onto a vertical surface good enough? Or do you need solid liquid in contact and thus would have to very slowly rotate a keg so that all sides are in contact for 1 minute at some point.

I just spray it on the verticle surface & never had any probs, so must be good enough.

 

[QldKev]

Recently peeved after purchasing no-name (Woolworth's Homebrand) Bleach and Nappy sanitiser to find they were both lemon scented even though there was no labelling to indicate as such. Unfortunately there's no Franklins up my way so I can't go back to the No-Frills which actually state whether perfumes are used.

In my last batch I used the last of my Country Brewer PSR and their no rinse spray sanitiser (1% Phosphoric acid once diluted).

I think it makes good sense to mix and match your regime to keep the bugs off guard.

Mind you though, making sure your clothes don't have cat fur on them is always a winner too!

Lemon scented, no problems - just make Corona

QldKev

 

[Kleiny]

I choose starsan because of my limited research below also a podcast from the company that makes starsan and PBW. 5 Star chemicals on the brewing network. Its well worth the listen.

Starsan - no rinse, sanitiseing foam, no ill health (that i know off yet), easily broken down and diluted.

Iodophor - doesn't brake down easily and although cheap can build up in the environment or cause all sorts of issues at the waste treatment plants. stains everything.

Bi metasulphite - really bad to asthmatics which i am and i don't yet know about my kids.

Bleach - i just get this shit everywhere and stain my clothes, its no good for the environment and you have to rinse.

Kleiny