Sanitizing

[CDrew]

I love star-san. Mix it up in distilled water and spray down everything involved in the process. It's cheap, effective, and for sanitizing carboys, it is the best. As the foam is displaced and comes out the top, even the foam is anti-bacterial. And it doesn't small bad, isn't bad for your skin, it's really excellent.

The one time I don't use Star-san is when bottling. Then a jet rinse with KMeta, since a tiny bit extra won't hurt anything.

 

[Stressbaby]

Re: rinsing with tap water, reposting my post from another thread. I personally think prohibitions on rinsing with tap water are nonsense.

At this time in 2018, the standard of care for wound repair is to rinse the wound under tap water prior to closure. It is not possible to reconcile this practice with the idea that the water is "full of bacteria."

KMS has contact time of 5-15 minutes depending on the cited source. If you think you have eliminated the bacteria by spraying KMS solution and waiting 60 seconds I think you are kidding yourself. If you spray, then rinse, it seems far more likely that the mechanical effect of the rinse will remove more bacteria than the KMS spray. Of the bacteria that remain, they are far more likely to have been there in the first place than to have been introduced by the tap water.

 

[Ajmassa]

I’m not following tho. Regardless of the bacteria or lack thereof in tap water— what would be the point of rinsing after sanitizing in the first place??
Say I wanna take a sample with my wine thief, but it’s not clean. I run under hot water first. Then clean with spritzing PBW and rinsing again. (Or One step w/o rinsing) and finally spritzing with a sanitizer. I’ll air drum it dry for a min and use. Why rinse again? What’s the thought there?

 

[CK55]

I only use star san, every single other product i have tried and ive tried everything i have gotten some kind of infection in wine and or beer.

 

[CK55]

But I am surprised the article did not list the reason that many "old hands" eschew chlorine, namely, cork taint.

Heres how you avoid cork taint without using artificial crap enclosures. DIAM Corks. They are guaranteed TCA free.

 

[stickman]

For wine I'm not trying to have sterile conditions, just reducing the numbers of microbes in general.

I use RO water to rinse sanitizer out of my tanks when transferring wine after pressing as AF may still be finishing. I do the same when racking off gross lees before or during ML. Just my preference, but I don't like the idea of any sanitizers or contaminants that might affect flavor or interfere with the completion of AF or ML.
Again just my preference, but I would always rinse the PBW, Oxyclean, or One Step, as these are oxygen based alkaline chemicals, and I can't see how the wine would benefit when in contact. I always follow these cleaners with a final acidic rinse to ensure neutralization.

 

[Stressbaby]

I’m not following tho. Regardless of the bacteria or lack thereof in tap water— what would be the point of rinsing after sanitizing in the first place??
Say I wanna take a sample with my wine thief, but it’s not clean. I run under hot water first. Then clean with spritzing PBW and rinsing again. (Or One step w/o rinsing) and finally spritzing with a sanitizer. I’ll air drum it dry for a min and use. Why rinse again? What’s the thought there?

The logic is the same as in wound care - you are mechanically dislodging and removing microbes.

I can't prove this but I have a set of tryptic soy agar plates on order from Amazon, and I'm going to test this out in some controlled experiments.

 

[Slappy]

I use star san and don't rinse. Never had an infection in 15 years of brewing and a couple of years winemaking. Star san is my choice as sulfur gas can set off my asthma so I feel it's the safest option. I feel that wine is a lot more forgiving than beer so am becoming a little less pedantic but I do scrub the shit out of all my fermenters still. Some other equipment I keep very clean but not too fussed about sterilising my punch down tools etc, I just make sure they're rinsed off well before I use them and are stored dry.

 

[Ajmassa]

The logic is the same as in wound care - you are mechanically dislodging and removing microbes.

I can't prove this but I have a set of tryptic soy agar plates on order from Amazon, and I'm going to test this out in some controlled experiments.

I understand you. And I’m doing that 1st - mechanically removing microbes- and then sanitizing and air drying. Still the same question. Why rinse again? Ya keep going back to wound care. If I cut myself and it was dirty I’d clean it up and rinse it off, hit it with alcohol or peroxide, then bandage up- not feeling it necessary to rinse off again.
And Like stickman said, I also don’t want leave too much k-meta remaining that would affect the wine. So if it has pooled up and looks like a substantial amount I’ll let it dry longer or even wipe away with a paper towel if it’s a press bucket or something.
Really sounds like this is more of an individual comfort thing. **As long as you’ve got your methods and reasoning then your aware enough to avoid potential contamination issues.

 

[Scooter68]

Using K-meta for sanitizing and treating wine makes a lot of sense, on product for everything, but... Starsan foam makes it easy to see. One of those, I've got it, it works well, I'll keep using it. And as mentioned the sulfur fumes off of K-meta can get a bit overpowering.

 

[Stressbaby]

I understand you. And I’m doing that 1st - mechanically removing microbes- and then sanitizing and air drying. Still the same question. Why rinse again? Ya keep going back to wound care. If I cut myself and it was dirty I’d clean it up and rinse it off, hit it with alcohol or peroxide, then bandage up- not feeling it necessary to rinse off again.
And Like stickman said, I also don’t want leave too much k-meta remaining that would affect the wine. So if it has pooled up and looks like a substantial amount I’ll let it dry longer or even wipe away with a paper towel if it’s a press bucket or something.
Really sounds like this is more of an individual comfort thing. **As long as you’ve got your methods and reasoning then your aware enough to avoid potential contamination issues.

Maybe my last posts were poorly worded. My point is not that it is BETTER to rinse. I'm just saying that it seems illogical to say that you are recontaminating your equipment by doing so, and if you don't want that extra little bit of StarSan or SO2 in the wine, there is no harm in rinsing it off.

 

[Regmata]

Now you guys are making me nervous, I have been using 1-Step Cleanser ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0064O7WCU/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 )

I use it for pretty much everything. I didn't see any good recommendations on contact time though. Any idea how long I should soak bottles prior to bottling wine? What about carboys etc?

Should I be using something different?

 

[sour_grapes]

I didn't see any good recommendations on contact time though. Any idea how long I should soak bottles prior to bottling wine? What about carboys etc?

The very link that you included said the following:

this product only requires about 2 minutes of contact with your equipment.

Of course, I do not know if this is accurate or not.

My memory on this is hazy, but I seem to think that One-step formerly was marketed as a sanitizer, but then they stopped calling it that. (Had to? Forced to? Decided to? Not sure of any of this.)

 

[Scooter68]

More important than contact time is the lifespan of the solution once mixed. I went about 6 months before I realized that 1-step mixed up is only good for about 1-2 weeks at best, plus it's slow to dissolve. Guess I got lucky and had no problems. Now with starsan it's cheap enough and has sort of a visual indicator (When cloudy dump it) so I can use it with confidence and not sweat the costs. At $20.00 for a quart and I use 6cc per gallon of distilled water and I know I'm good. I've tried tap water and Spring Water and my sources all created a cloudy mix. With distilled water no issues.

Of course contact time is important but it doesn't really matter if your solution is not viable anymore.

I used one-step initially because it came with my starter kit. Now I'm using star-san only.

 

[Slappy]

More important than contact time is the lifespan of the solution once mixed. I went about 6 months before I realized that 1-step mixed up is only good for about 1-2 weeks at best, plus it's slow to dissolve. Guess I got lucky and had no problems. Now with starsan it's cheap enough and has sort of a visual indicator (When cloudy dump it) so I can use it with confidence and not sweat the costs. At $20.00 for a quart and I use 6cc per gallon of distilled water and I know I'm good. I've tried tap water and Spring Water and my sources all created a cloudy mix. With distilled water no issues.

Of course contact time is important but it doesn't really matter if your solution is not viable anymore.

I used one-step initially because it came with my starter kit. Now I'm using star-san only.

Bloody hell $20 a quart! For $20 here in Australia I get 4 ounces. Cost of some things here is insane compared to the US.

 

[CK55]

Bloody hell $20 a quart! For $20 here in Australia I get 4 ounces. Cost of some things here is insane compared to the US.

Yep but star San works the best, it will kill anything. It's just peace of mind plus it breaks down into harmless minerals

 

[Scooter68]

With Star San I shake the carboy with about 3-5 oz of the solution. When I've worked up a good foam, I tip it over let it drain and set it upside down to dry. (That's After I've already cleaned and rinsed it well with a cleaner) The foam sticks well to the inside and certainly stays in contact for well over a minute. Their Phrase about it is "Embrace the foam" Basically when you see it alll over the containerequipment you know you are getting good coverage and you just need to let it drain and dry.

 

[CK55]

With Star San I shake the carboy with about 3-5 oz of the solution. When I've worked up a good foam, I tip it over let it drain and set it upside down to dry. (That's After I've already cleaned and rinsed it well with a cleaner) The foam sticks well to the inside and certainly stays in contact for well over a minute. Their Phrase about it is "Embrace the foam" Basically when you see it alll over the containerequipment you know you are getting good coverage and you just need to let it drain and dry.

Don't let it dry if you do you negate the point. Just fill it right up it doesn't harm you to do so.

 

[Scooter68]

What??? I sanitize my carboys and tie a cloth top on them. I don't immediately fill every carboy with something. It doesn't negate anything to let them dry.
Then, if they have been setting for a long time empty, I normally give them a quick rinse with Star San and use them. I don't store dirty or unsantized equipment or containers.

Recycled bottles get cleaned and sanitized and store with a cotton ball in the top or with a cloth over a box of them. Bottles get sanitized the day before or the day of filling and are left upside down on my drying rack until I use them.