Hi all,
Finally moving into the 21st century and down the Starsan route to cut out all that rinsing time from my brewdays. Just wanted to know what do most of you dilute the stuff with? I've read that ordinary tap water renders it cloudy and less effective and that distilled water is best. Halfords only seem to do deionised water. I know that it's different from distilled water but would it do? Thinking now, I've an endless source of it from our dehumidifier. Or is there a cheap Tesco bottled water I could pick up?
Any tips or experiences welcomed.
Cheers,
-Barry
I use tap water and it works fine (our water is hard). It goes cloudy alright but I reckon its fine for a few weeks. I got some deionised water at the motor-factors for my spray bottle but that went cloudy too!
I like the dehumidifier idea. We have a condensing tumble dryer, I assume the water from this would be the same?
The water in the driers tends to be contaminated with perfumes. The cloudiness is undesirable and charley Talley does talk of it normally being a problem. However as Tube says pH is the definitive factor once it's below three it's good. I find with my tap water that I can't get below 3.4 so I tend to use Halfords battery refill water.
Sent from my HTC One
Cheers lads.
So here's my question, are you talking a pH of 3 BEFORE or AFTER adding the Starsan?
I tried some pH strips on our tap water last night. Was around 5-6.
Tried them on some water in the dehumidifier. Still 5-ish.
Had a go at distilling some water. After about an hour's boiling and attempted condensing I measured the tiny trickle of water gathered - again 5!
Dodgy pH strips?
Cheers,
-Barry
Quote from: Tube on April 09, 2014, 09:49:24 AM
pH strips are a bit vague.
Got those off the missus, who's a nurse by day. Thought vagueness was something you DIDN'T want in the medical profession :o
Anyway, ordered a cheap pH meter off of Ebay. £5. From Hong Kong, however, so I hope not being from China doesn't make it any less shitty and hopeless. You worry.
-Barry
Starsan is an acid sanitiser, its all about PH regardless of cloudy or not.
I keep my Combat ( Irish Starsan replacement) PH at 2 same as stomach acid, not much lives in that!
Okay, so all the science, pH and stuff aside. Here's a scenario:
I give my FV a good wash to make sure there's no traces of dirt in it. Then I pour in a litre or 2 of Starsan solution, swirl it around for a minute, pour it out again and then it's all fine for my precious wort to go in? THAT'S JUST F***ING CRAZY MAN!!!
You must understand, I've been using VWP for the last 5 years.
Also, the instructions say this stuff shouldn't come in contact with human skin or eyes YET WE'RE FINE TO DRINK TRACES OF IT?
-Barry
P.S. my project in work got canned late last week, leaving me with FAR too much time to think about stuff.
Ebay and Amazon have been taking a battering too.
Quote from: Tube on April 09, 2014, 10:43:31 AM
About 100ml will do. Swirl it around and around and then dump it or pour it back in your starsan repository.
AAAAAAAHHH! This is blowing my freakin' mind!
So you only have 1-200ml of solution made up at any one time?
Cheers,
-Barry
or use a spray bottle, which u should have anyway for general spraying.
As per instructions on starsan bottle the neat stuff is hazordous so dont spill on skin, splash on eyes or drink it :o ::)
If you want a cheap source of de-ionised water go to your local petshop/aquarium.
Aquariums shops will have a reverse osmosis set up and should sell you 5 gallons of RO water for about a fiver. Well the do in Malahide!
So use RO water to dilute the starsan 1:500 as it says and get a 1 or 2 litre garden spray bottle from the DIY/Garden centre and you are set up!
Cheers lads. This is all extremely helpful.
I didn't realise the amounts needed were so small so I've started distilling some water in the kitchen.
When the Startsan arrives later, I'll put some into the normal tap water, the distilled water and water from the de-humidifer and compare colours with the pH strips.
Ordered a set of 5 spay bottles day before yesterday so should be here soon.
This is a brave new world for one so advanced in his years. Was getting my hair cut this morning and the barber actually recommended me Brill Cream over any high and fancy styling gels ???
-Barry
Hi Barry,
I make up 5L with cheap bottled water from Tesco, then put into a spray bottle (£1 from Wyse Byse) for general use, or into the bottle rinser. I still use W5 oxy and VWP for steeping fermentors.
Andy
As well as the spray bottle I have 5-gallon bucket and lid. Leave hoses, jugs, airlocks, bungs, siphon sticks, bottles and whatever. leave the lid on and everything is ready to use anytime.
Spray bottle is filled from the bucket. Hard to make up 1 litre of starsan as its only a few mls to a gallon.
Since my last post the Starsan arrived. As did my wife with a medical syringe.
So I took 3 glasses and into each I put in 100ml of tapwater, water collected from dehumidifier and distilled water respectively.
Into each glass I added 0.15ml of Starsan and shook (Syringe capacity is 1ml so pretty accurate).
Below are the results:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/86457308/2014-04-09%2013.26.56.jpg)
Far left is tap water with no Starsan and following on from left to right are Starsan solutions with tap water, de-ioninsed water and distilled water in that order.
As you can see from the pH strips they're all around 3 (compared to 5-6 of the untreated tap water), but notice how cloudy the Starsan/tap water combo is, compared to the others. The distilled solution looks to be more foamy though it could be due to shaking it more than the others (and spilling a little in the process). In contrast the tap water solution seems the least foamy though maybe my shaking technique was a little rusty earlier in the experiment.
So in conclusion the above test has just confirmed my earlier assertion that I am currently between projects in work.
Cheers,
-Barry
Very hard water can resist the ph being lowered.
Wasn't it Oscar Wilde who quipped 'I can resist anything but being pH lowered'?
So, after the previous revelations I shook all three glasses again. The Starsan/distilled solution was definitely the most lively again and foamed so much I lost yet another bit. The tap water was the most sluggish so I would conclude that it might work for a couple of goes before going completely flat and, since it's all about the foam, that would be the end of its usefulness.
I was a little unfair on the dehumidifier water. It might have performed better had it not been sitting in the unit for weeks and starting to smell a bit.
So here's a question, if you were to distill water fresh from the dehumidifier would that give you something more pure than Bertie Ahern's heart? If you made enough to swim in would you come out of the pool all young again like in that film 'Cocoon'?
Final question: Does anyone need any odd jobs done? For free, like?
-Barry
Starsan has a soap (Sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate) in the mix to break surface tension and evenly coat surfaces, thats why its good as a spray as it evenly coats surfaces instead of beading.
So mineral free water is better at creating a lather just like hard water in your bath versus softened / treated.
So keep this in mind and use soft water when possible.
The milky solution with harder water is still acidic but check if it has lost its 'soap' by checking if it beads on surfaces or not
Interesting stuff Barry!
I still can't get over StarSan - every time I use it I'm thinking "there must be a catch"!
Just to reiterate how great this stuff is... Make up the solution with deionized water and you can reuse it for months and months. Once the pH is below 3, it's still good.
starsan is one of the best brewing products I've ever purchased!
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
If you want to distill something just use tap water. That only contains minerals and so the condensate will be nearly 100% pure.
If as you state the dehumidifier water contains traces of perfumes then these will distill over with the water (this process is called steam distillation - its what happens when you have small amounts of oils mixed in with a lot of water)
Why not go to the pet shop?
Quote from: Will_D on April 10, 2014, 10:37:07 AM
If as you state the dehumidifier water contains traces of perfumes
That was Eoin and Garry talking about using water from a condensing tumble drier. There should be no perfumes in the de-humidifier. Actually, come to think of it, we chiefly use it when hanging clothes to dry inside so maybe it DOES contain perfumes.
Quote from: Will_D on April 10, 2014, 10:37:07 AM
Why not go to the pet shop?
1. I'm too cheap
2. I've come up with a simple method for distilling 500ml at a time on the cooker
3. My kids are 5 and 3. They see me walk into a pet shop they'll be upset if I don't emerge with a pet ???
Stuck on a batch of WOW last night, using only a shaking of Starsan in the demijohn. Felt weird...
Cheers,
-Barry
Just had to Google 'WOW' (other search engines are available)!
Looks good - think you were telling me about it at the Feb. brew meet?
Where'd you pick up this magical thing you call "starsan"?
Quote from: Roo on April 10, 2014, 06:18:01 PM
Where'd you pick up this magical thing you call "starsan"?
Hi Roo, hope you don't mind me posting on this thread, we recently added some of the starsan range and new 400g brewsafe as the 240g was such a big seller; http://www.geterbrewed.com/cleaner/ Regards J
Quote from: @geterbrewed on April 10, 2014, 10:01:27 PM
Quote from: Roo on April 10, 2014, 06:18:01 PM
Where'd you pick up this magical thing you call "starsan"?
Hi Roo, hope you don't mind me posting on this thread, we recently added some of the starsan range and new 400g brewsafe as the 240g was such a big seller; http://www.geterbrewed.com/cleaner/ Regards J
Great news! Nice to have a local supplier.
Can you drop some up in the farmshop in Ahoghill and ill pick it up?
Bazza do you know anyone with a brita jug filter that i believe is pretty purified ,otherwise i have ro water coming out my ying yang (i use it for window cleaning)100 gallons per day.I would bring some to the next meet up in the warzone if any one wants some pure 0ppm water, bring your containers . oh by the way wheres the after party
>:D
Quote from: Roo on April 11, 2014, 06:37:52 PM
Can you drop some up in the farmshop in Ahoghill and ill pick it up?
Yes no problem, we are up tomorrow evening for the steak night, i'll leave a selection of the new products up then, let me know if you need anything else dropped up
Hi Gonzo, I've looked at those window cleaning RO units before. What sort of throughput do they give? They promise a lot
Sent from my XT890 using Tapatalk
Hi rich i have a 5stage unit rated at 100 gallons a day,in reality you probably get half that ,even less when its cold out-or your supply pressure.You also lose about half of what you put in to waste and you have to have something to store the water as it just trickles out. I disconnect the membrane on mine and use the five micron sediment and carbon filter to remove the chlorine in my brew water(as ive read other brewers do).
Thanks for the offer of the water, Gonzo.
Think we've a Britta filter somewhere in the garage. Haven't used it in ages. Never considered using it for homebrewing. Hmmm....
-Barry