sanitizer and oxygen...

[David Hicks]

Most sanitizers are oxidizers, making it very important to insure your vessel is dry before you fill it; otherwise residual sanitizer could potentially oxidize your beer.

(http://www.probrewer.com/resources/s...f/cleaning.php)

Really? I have been homebrewing for a while and using Star-san. The saying goes "don't fear the foam" Does this statement that you need to get your fermenter dry before you fill it not apply to Star-san? I cant Imagine that it is common practice to wait for an hour or more for the foam to settle...

Do commercial breweries even use star-san (or equivalent)?

[zachjenny]

Star-San works great in a homebrewing environment, but in the brewery where a CIP loop is employed, star-san foams so much that it's almost impossible to use. I think the foaming qualities prohibit most breweries from using this product.
I would guess that the statement, "you must add the star-san to a dry fermenter", would apply to a small vessel where you intend to fill it all the way up, adding star-san. It seems that this would help facilitate the foaming as the mixture is forced to hit the dry wall causing more nucleation points.

[Woolsocks]

I've heard of Star San being applied to open fermenters with a foamer when CIP was not practical. Otherwise, yeah, it's not used to sanitize too many professionals' tanks. I do not think it's an oxidizer, but I could be wrong.

[beerking1]

Because of foaming, Saniclean is the 5 Star sanitizer for CIP applications. Supposed to be pretty much the same as StarSan.

[Ted Briggs]

I've used star-san when I WANTED foaming- works well for the outside of vessels, floors and walls, foam sani of mash tun, sani of filter plates after cleaning. Especialy when used with a foaming sprayer. Advantage over Quat is abliity to use on beer contact surface- Although Quat has a long active time so it is great for those hard to scrub areas.
Ohh- and because its acid based it leaves stainless shiny--

[gitchegumee]

I use it to foam down the brewery after cleaning to sanitize everything. Foam has its place, but it's not in a tank.

[Brancid]

Star-San works great for almost all sani applications aside from CIP. If you'd like to use it as a tank sanitizer I'd go with the Sani-Clean product. As it was explained to me, it is the same product w/ an anti-foaming agent added.

I like the *-San products because they are acid based. After any alkaline soak, we quick rinse and dunk into star-san before air drying. I've found that it's tough to get all the cleaning product off of small parts without intensive rinsing.

I'm not trying to sanitize every part I put away, but instead looking to have fully removed any extremely high pH substance away from the stainless.

Another wonderful thing about acid based sanitizers is that they kill at known pH levels. Star-San, and Sani-Clean for instance, will kill bugs @ 3.5 pH or below. The dosage rate for these products are based upon an average water profile. Your water maybe nice enough to only use .5 oz/5 gals, or you may need more. Spend the time to titrate a solution to your water and use that amount. Saved a lot of chemical at our shop.

That being said, it's always a good idea to switch up your sanitizers on a fairly regular bases. We use clor-dioxide for CIP type sanitizing for most part, and will change to sani-clean from time to time to keep the bugs guessing.

[beerking1]

Your water maybe nice enough to only use .5 oz/5 gals, or you may need more. Spend the time to titrate a solution to your water and use that amount. Saved a lot of chemical at our shop.

Great tip, Brandon. I have VERY soft water and may be able to capitalize on this.

Thanks!

[SRB]

I've heard of Star San being applied to open fermenters with a foamer when CIP was not practical.....

We fall into the "high foaming" category in our 7bbl brewery. We sanitize with high foam from a pump sprayer for our PV's and or B/S tanks. We CIP loop our hoses, pumps HE with low foam. We plan to eventually outfit $$$ our grundy's with spray balls for CIP. Open fermneters are a CIP challenge. So scrub a dub dub for us.

We let the solution drip dry almost completely but often there is just a little foam still dribbling.

[Woolsocks]

Another wonderful thing about acid based sanitizers is that they kill at known pH levels. Star-San, and Sani-Clean for instance, will kill bugs @ 3.5 pH or below. The dosage rate for these products are based upon an average water profile. Your water maybe nice enough to only use .5 oz/5 gals, or you may need more. Spend the time to titrate a solution to your water and use that amount. Saved a lot of chemical at our shop.

I asked the folks at 5 Star about that statement and here's the response I got

To achieve the kill you are looking for you need to use the label recommended dilution. On one hand the law forbids us from recommending anything other than the approved label instructions. On the other, playing around with lower dilution ratios is wandering into unknown territory and your beer is always at risk when you do that. As an acid anionic sanitizer, the pH is a conditional indicator of efficacy, it is NOT what kills. The kill is accomplished by the presence of DDBSA, the root, 'active' ingredient. Dropping the amount of that ingredient in the ratio of the solution seriously compromises the effectiveness.