I’ve not used Star San before. In the past I’ve had a powder cleaner and dumped it after each use. But lately I’ve been reading people fill a squirt bottle of star San and it lasts forever. Here are two questions.
If I mix up a 5gal recipe of star San can I keep it sealed in a Home Depot bucket? I’ll use it to sanitize my next big mouth for secondary this weekend, then I’ll save it and sanitize my bottles and equipment on brewing day.
What can you actually sanitize with just a spray bottle? Doesn’t seem like you can be confident your equipment is truly clean.
I mix up 5 gallons and keep it in a fermenting bucket. ON brew day, when I am ready to transfer wort to the fementing bucket, I dump the Star San into another fermenting bucket. So I always have a bucket that is well sanitized and ready to go. It lasts for a long time.I usually end up dumping and making new every few batches, only because there is always some debris that gets into the bucket at some point. So for the cost of a 5 gallon bucket of Star San I figure it’s good to replace every so often. Also, throughout the days of brewing, bottling and kegging, I refill a spray bottle with Star San from the bucket. It’s very handy for spraying spoons, and any gear that I want to make sure has a last minute sanitize done before it touches my beer. You really don’t need to soak anything with the Star San. As long as the gear is clean and has no debris on it, all it takes is a minute or so in contact with the Star San and sanitation is complete. Personally, I like the method of just placing my gear in the bucket of Star San to make sure it’s all done well, but it’s really overkill.
I store the Star San solution in one gallon plastic jugs. Vinegar jugs are heavy duty plastic. The one gallon jugs are easy to store on the bottom shelf of my workbench. I sanitize in a five gallon bucket. When pouring the sanitizer back into the jugs I watch for sediment in the bucket. I may toss a pint of solution that has sediment for each brewing session.
Star San solution is good to use as long as the pH is 3.0 or below. I use the narrow range pH strips to check it once in awhile.
I haven’t done this, but may try, using an automotive paint strainer funnel to catch the debris? Just a thought, and I do as Flars does, one gallon jugs. As far as a spray bottle, its easy to spray and wash yer hands and misc. equipment when taking yer samples towards the end of fermenting. Sneezles61
Also, because you said the word “clean,” I’m going to give you the quick lecture about “cleaning” versus “sanitizing.” You clean things when you see dirt. You sanitize when things look perfectly clean. Don’t use a spray bottle of StarSan on a crusty fermentor- use it on one you’ve just cleaned with a proper cleanser. Does that make sense?
ok ok Uberculture…
since we don’t know each other you don’t realize that i’m the type of person that would rather burn something b/c it had “crusty” on it, than try and clean it to use again.
I use StarSan in a spray bottle while bottleing and on equipment going into the wort after the 15min point. The spray bottle is kept in the kitchen and the wife and I use it to sanitize counters/cutting boards etc. I only mix 1 gallon batches but it lasts until we can use it up.
My tap water makes my star san cloudy fairly quickly. I’ve made it with distilled water before to save it and it stays clear. I know cloudy doesn’t mean its bad but I don’t have any pH test strips.
