As I was boiling wort, I went to make my sanitizing solution and ended up dumping 3/4 ox of Star San into the wort!!! Argh. I am assuming that it’s a dead batch … but thought I would see if someone had a miracle in their pocket.
assuming it was a 5 gallon batch, that’s almost enough star san to make a sanitizer.
Not sure what happens when it’s boiled though… If you’re not concerned about the cost of any hops that haven’t been added yet, or yeast - I would let it ride and see what happens. View it as an experiment, haha.
Read the bottle…it says not to ingest it…I for one would take the loss of the batch and save my health…
OK … I’m dumping the (5 gal) batch- but in the unlikely event someone reads this and ends up in this situation, here are some things to consider:
- Star San is dominantly phosphoric acid, which decomposes at 158 C. Takeaway - the boil is not going to render it inert.
- It is approved for use as a food additive, BUT …
- In the food industry, companies (like Pepsi) use it for a bittering agent when they are too cheap to use citric acid - so, even in much more dilute concentrations than 1000 ppm, it will mess with the flavor.
- In approval, CFR 178.1010 has a general theme of “draining” sanitizing solutions to achieve delivery concentrations on the order of <10 ppm, 100 times less than the concentration in this batch (+/-).
- The EU acceptable daily intake is 70 mg/kg.
Not worth messing with to me.
When I said let it ride, I didn’t mean drink the whole thing. Clearly it wouldn’t be good for you, but a sip wouldn’t shorten your life span.
Dumping it isn’t a bad idea though. You can save the yeast or any unused hops for another batch.
It’s never fun dumping a batch but nobody is above brain farts. Good luck on the next one :cheers:
Big bummer.
Super Brain Fart sounds like a character out of a Captain Underpants book.
Dump it it’s not worth the risk, this means a fresh, clean carboy: right?!
FWIW, as long as you don’t drink the whole thing it won’t harm you. Drinking a tiny amount of properly diluted star san won’t affect your health. It just taste a tad acidic. When diluted, It’s mostly water, and a tiny bit of surfactant (ingredient in detergent) and phosphoric acid (common ingredient in soda). It’s like washing your mouth out with a bar of soap. Obviously it’s not good for you, but it’s not dangerous.
I’m not trying to promote drinking the stuff. Don’t drink it. - just saying there’s not a risk when it’s diluted, unless you consume a lot of it.
It will give you a clean “movement”…
