I Am NOT a Fan Of Star-San

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I honestly wouldn’t brew without StarSan. I can’t imagine having to sanitize without it. I use a spray bottle and the stuff seems to go everywhere, so I am actually scared of the iodine based cleaners. I do tend to up the concentration on spray bottles. The thought being I am often spraying wet things which will dilute on surface. I had a bottle tip and leak a couple of months ago and at full concentration it etched the concrete in my garage. Otherwise love the stuff.
 
BrewZer said:
4.25 milliliters is the appropriate dilution amount for 92 ounces (2720 ml) of water. You're going in with a huge overdose.
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Yeah, found my math error (I think). One ounce to five gallons is proportional to 'x' over 12 ounces,
or:
 [29.574 ml x 354.888 ml] : [ 'X' x 18,927.36 ml]
10,495.56 ml^2 = 18,927.36 ml x 'X'
'X' = 0.5545 ml

There's a reason I never made it as an engineer. I was off by a factor of 10 (I think).:confused:
 
D.B.Moody said:
I don't even do that. After rinsing sediment from the bottom, I just put them in the dishwasher with the other dishes and then store them in the basement (my fermentation, bottling, and conditioning area) for their next use. No StarSan and no problems for 28 years of brewing. YRMV.
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That Bud Dry box is giving me PTSD. Lol
 
hout17 said:
That Bud Dry box is giving me PTSD. Lol
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I hate to tell you that the case in front of that is Natty Light. What can I say? The bottles were free and already empty. :p
Underneath the Schafly Pale Ale box is a Busch case, and not seen are two Budweiser cases. The Busch and Budwieser bottles are old school, heavy, returnable bottles. (It may be obvious from all this that I live in the St. Louis area.)
 
D.B.Moody said:
I hate to tell you that the case in front of that is Natty Light. What can I say? The bottles were free and already empty. :p
Underneath the Schafly Pale Ale box is a Busch case, and not seen are two Budweiser cases. The Busch and Budwieser bottles are old school, heavy, returnable bottles. (It may be obvious from all this that I live in the St. Louis area.)
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Hey, that reminds me. I've got two cases of the old Michelob hour glass bottles from the 60s. Yeah, I'm a sentimental hoarder.
 
So I got these mad scientist's gloves. Now I can use fluoroantimonic acid. It kills everything.
 

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bwible said:
PBW will leave a white residue on bottles sometimes. But I’ve only had it happen when the bottles have been soaking for a long time (I’m talking I’ve left them soak for over a week) are not completely immersed. Like if the top of the neck is above the liquid. When this white residue forms I haven’t found anything thst will remove it. Nothing.
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I also have "ring-around-the bottle" when soaking for extended periods. But since I use only water for the soak, the answer is the chemicals already in the water. We have hard water and that is what forms deposits. A stainless steel pot scrubber will remove the ring nicely. Or completely submerging the bottles.
 
D.B.Moody said:
I hate to tell you that the case in front of that is Natty Light. What can I say? The bottles were free and already empty. :p
Underneath the Schafly Pale Ale box is a Busch case, and not seen are two Budweiser cases. The Busch and Budwieser bottles are old school, heavy, returnable bottles. (It may be obvious from all this that I live in the St. Louis area.)
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I grew up there and I drank a lot of that Bud Dry back in the day. Never liked the Ice, but that dry was named well. Seemed like you always had to have another one ready to wash the last one down
 
Homebrew Harry said:
I grew up there and I drank a lot of that Bud Dry back in the day. Never liked the Ice, but that dry was named well. Seemed like you always had to have another one ready to wash the last one down
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Before there was Bud Dry, AB actually made Michelob Dry. I was in Daytona Beach in the early 1980s and was tossing a few back with some friends when a Budweiser marketing rep approached our group to offer us some of this new product. He had us at "Free Beer." And Michelob no less!

I actually thought that it wasn't half bad, plus the price was right, which made it taste even that much better. In the intervening years it was marketed in certain regions. I'd buy it from time to time if I saw it, but it never seemed to gain any wide appeal. Eventually it just disappeared from the shelves of my favored liquor stores. Plus my tastes had 'evolved', as the hipsters would say.

Fast forward to 10 years or so ago. Here's this new fangled Bud Dry that AB is advertising in the middle of my favorite football/baseball/golf programming. Did I try it? Hell, yeah! Did I like it? On a scale from "..meh.." to "NO!", I'll have to go with the second choice. Now, of course, AB has Michelob Ultra as well as a few other 'interesting pseudo beers.' If I'm foregoing actually cereal malt beverages, such as for Dry January ("Dranuary") or perhaps Lent (reminds me, today is Fat Tuesday...better drink up!), or if I'm just in the mood for some beer-flavored water, then I might venture to consume an Ultra or two, at least until I regain my sanity.
 
Homebrew Harry said:
Seemed like you always had to have another one ready to wash the last one down
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Sounds like a great marketing scheme. :p
I grew up in Webster Groves and moved to Kirkwood in 1971. You?

Brooothru said:
Before there was Bud Dry . . .
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Loved your story. My older brother now drinks Bud Select, but his son still drinks Natty Light. I suppose I don't need to say that they are not home brewers. :p
 
D.B.Moody said:
Sounds like a great marketing scheme. :p
I grew up in Webster Groves and moved to Kirkwood in 1971. You?
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Opposite side of the state in K.C.(Go Chiefs), left in '68 for college (K.U. Go Jayhawks), but get back only occasionally now to see the few family members on both sides who still reside there. Twenty years in Uncle Sam's Yacht Club for Wayward Boys plus 20+ more in the airline industry has taken my wife and me many places far from our roots, but our souls are still in the Heartland.
 
jerrylotto said:
I don't understand why people use chemical sanitation for bottles. After clearning, I just put them into the oven, heat it to 350F and then just let everything cool off overnight.
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This is exactly what I do as well. For me it is convenient. I set up a stool next to the open oven door on my left and the bottling bucket on a cart I front of me. I pull bottles to fill and set on a counter to the right and cap them all afterwards. There’s a lot of ways to sanitize bottles and they all work.
 
D.B.Moody said:
Sounds like a great marketing scheme. :p
I grew up in Webster Groves and moved to Kirkwood in 1971....My older brother now drinks Bud Select...
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Haha, I think they left that part out of the adds.
I was born and raised a mile from Anheiser Busch Brewery in the city. I left that rat race in 1993 and bought a place in West Ky near the lakes (LBL). I still go to St.Louis for visits and concerts.
Regarding that Bud Select: I gave that stuff a try when it first came out. All I can say is I'm glad I only bought a 12. Your brother is tougher than I am. On occasion I wish I had some of that Bud Dry for comparison and for a memory check. IMO It was way better than their other versions such as Ice, Select, and Light. Just saying Bud Light puts a bad taste in my mouth.
 
Dancy said:
This is exactly what I do as well. For me it is convenient. I set up a stool next to the open oven door on my left and the bottling bucket on a cart I front of me. I pull bottles to fill and set on a counter to the right and cap them all afterwards. There’s a lot of ways to sanitize bottles and they all work.
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I'm with Jerrylotto and Dancy on this one. I never use it in bottles. I strive to use as little chemicals as possible in anything that I make or do. When I feel I need to use Starsan, I rinse the item(s) with pre-boiled water.
 
Dancy said:
This is exactly what I do as well. For me it is convenient. I set up a stool next to the open oven door on my left and the bottling bucket on a cart I front of me. I pull bottles to fill and set on a counter to the right and cap them all afterwards. There’s a lot of ways to sanitize bottles and they all work.
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If you don't plan to fill the bottles right away you can cover the mouths with a 2" square of foil before you bake them. Once cooled, put 'em away with the foil still on and they'll be sanitized and ready to go for next time.
 
Misplaced_Canuck said:
30+ years of homebrewing. I've never used Star-San. I use bleach or iodophor (for stainless). Occasionally I boil stuff but that's pretty rare. Bleach is cheap - and so am I! :D
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Bleach is my primary sanitizer (bottles, buckets, fermenter, hoses). The spot sanitizing I do with a shpritz of StarSan (nozzles, spigots, airlocks).

But I'm not doing bottle caps with it any more. Maybe it's me, maybe it's my priming sugar, maybe it's the universe telling me to cut back. I don't know. But it's a variable I can control and it seems to have a suppressing effect on head in my beers.
 
Misplaced_Canuck said:
30+ years of homebrewing. I've never used Star-San. I use bleach or iodophor (for stainless). Occasionally I boil stuff but that's pretty rare. Bleach is cheap - and so am I! :D
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I have a spray bottle for mixed bleach water under the sink and use it a lot. Instead of boiling starter and other items I now put it in an insta-pot on high pressure for an hour. It doesn't steam up the house in the summer and I like being able to set it and forget it until I need the items or starter. Props to you for being cheap ! I am too. I love good deals and saving $
 
When I first started brewing, I drank a full 12oz glass of StarSan with no ill effects, not that I would recommend such, but a dare is a dare...

I can't imagine it taking a tan off. I am up to my elbows in it regularly and it sure hasn't done anything to my freckles.

I also keep 5 gallons stored in a PET water jug. I've used the same jug for over 5 years and it's no worse for wear.
 
Been using StarSan exclusively for my sanitizer and have never had anything odd happen with skin irritation or reactions with my equipment. I can say that it will react on Formica counter tops(the kind the Wife does NOT approve of). Thankfully there are a number of other sanitizers out there, so have at em and give me your left over StarSan.
 
I brewed with a friend last weekend and he said that he wanted to make a fresh batch of StarSan so I went and dumped out his bucket. In the bottom were a couple of carboy stoppers, a crusted-over airlock, and 2 bottle caps that dissolved in my hand when I tried to pick them up! I bet you could sanitize with Coke too, but StarSan is much cheaper...
 
Can Star-San go bad? The last batch I made had a funny smell to it. I used filtered water to mix a 5 gallon batch. I bought another bottle as I am close to finishing this last bottle, which I've use for quite a long time! (nearly 8 years).
 

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