After cleaning the bottles, is a trickle of alcohol enough to sanitize the bottles? do I need to wait completely for the alcohol to evaporate? or a bit of it will damage my beer?
Denatured alcohol 97%
Star San
You shouldn't use denatured alcohol to sterilize since it is poisonous. If you're determined to use it still you need to let it evaporate completely so that the methanol or whatever other additive in the ethanol is not in your bottles. Overall, seems pretty risky to me.
is it that poisonous?, I mean I'll wait for it to evaporate but always a little bit may stay in the bottle.
is it that poisonous?, I mean I'll wait for it to evaporate but always a little bit may stay in the bottle.
I'd buy it, but there is no Star San in my country.
Is there no mail in your country either? Just order some star san, get it shipped to you. Probably be expensive but it'll last you for a long time and make you're life WAY easier.
Well I guess I can pay for shipping it, if it's that good I guess it's worth the extra price.
is it that poisonous?
If you have to even ask this question......it's worth staying away from, no?
As somebody else mentioned, you can always bake your bottles in your oven to sanitize/sterilize them, too. Lots of good information out there on the temps/times to go this route.
I'm probably not qualified to say but they do put the additives in denatured alcohol specifically so people can't drink it. Methanol is commonly used in denatured alcohol and small amounts can cause permanent blindness. In addition, 30mL is fatal in humans.
Can you get Iodine? The other recommended no-rinse sanitizer is Iodophor, which is just titratable iodine diluted with water to the proper ratio to be a no-rinse sanitizer that doesn't affect the flavor of the beer.
Rather than spending a large amount of money for a small bottle of it at our homebrewshop, man of us buy a large amount of it for a little money at Farmer's supply stores, it's the common sanitizer in the dairy industry, and it's used by farmers to sanitize the teats and the milking equipment on the dairy farm. And it comes in a gallon for the same price you buy a few ounces at the brew store.
You have to do some calculations based on the percetnage of iodine present to then dilute it to the recommended 12.5 ppm. For many formulations of Iodine (iodophors) that usually works out to being about 1 tablespoon/5 gallons of water for a no-rinse, wet contact solution that requires only a minute contact time to render whatever you want sanitized.
Yes!, I can get that!
thank you very much!
Just small amounts of methanol used to denature ethanol will make you go blind!!!! Stay away from it if you can. Use the iodine like they use in the hospitals in a diluted form. It is a non-rinse sanitizer. If you can't get that easily go for the bleach solution as suggested before or better yet, just boil them for 10 minutes.
methanol --> alcohol dehydrogenase --> formaldehyde
Is there no mail in your country either? Just order some star san, get it shipped to you. Probably be expensive but it'll last you for a long time and make you're life WAY easier.
Most homebrew supply stores will not ship outside of the contiguous United States. I tried to get a kit shipped up to Alaska, and no one would ship it. I had three orders cancelled on me because they would not ship. One company even promised it, but then I got an email saying the order was canceled.
I always do a quick rinse. .
That's probably because home brewing, and alcohol in general, is pretty illegal in many parts of Alaska. And it seems the authorities are pretty tough on booze even in the areas that aren't dry.
Both Northern Brewer and Midwest Supply ship outside the US. How do I know this, you ask? My wife works in international shipping at the UPS hub here in Mpls, and both NB and Midwest have packages going through there on a daily basis.
I'm sure that Revvy's really hot, but does that mean that he (or she) needs to demean the opinion of anyone other than his or her self with no real understanding of what is being discussed? If you are about to pitch a batch, using an iodine based sterilizer and immediately pitching the brew is the best way to go. You are assured that there will be no residual odor or taste in your brew.
I can assure you that I am privy to the opinions of a multitude of pontificators and find few of them helpful. I know that it's hard for those who know everything there is to know about everything to resist chastising those who don't subscribe to their line.
Thanks, but next time know of what you speak and accept the opinions of those who could possibly have more experience that you!
I'm sure that Revvy's really hot, but does that mean that he (or she) needs to demean the opinion of anyone other than his or her self with no real understanding of what is being discussed? If you are about to pitch a batch, using an iodine based sterilizer and immediately pitching the brew is the best way to go. You are assured that there will be no residual odor or taste in your brew.
I can assure you that I am privy to the opinions of a multitude of pontificators and find few of them helpful. I know that it's hard for those who know everything there is to know about everything to resist chastising those who don't subscribe to their line.
Thanks, but next time know of what you speak and accept the opinions of those who could possibly have more experience that you!
Really? Two posts in and you're joining that crowd? I know I'm not the only regular on this site that's thinking this, but it's dudes (or gals) like you who're making some of us reconsider trying to be helpful anymore. I think it's really cr@ptastic that every time a knowledgeable brewer offers their time and advice to help someone out, some..... guy.... comes along and basically talks a bunch of $hit. It's pretty d@mn offensive to those of us who might want to actually learn something about brewing, or to those of us who enjoy sharing our knowledge and/or experiences. The people here that post and answer questions all the time do it because we like to, because it's fun, and because it feels good to help people out. We all remember what it was like when we started and many of us wish we had an experienced brewer at hand to help out. And that's what this site USED to be about. I was incognito for a ~month or so due to family issues and ever since I came back around, I've seen this type of @$$hattery getting out of control. It's sick. Not to mention very sad. Really, if trolling is your thing, go create a myfacetwatspacebook page and troll there, from what I here they love that sorta thing.
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