BeerBorg

I am sitting here enjoying my first home brew in MONTHS! It's my Left Over Pale ale (made from left over ingredients and named before the change of Brewery name) and it's green as heck - only carbing for two weeks and no time in the 'fridge - but I couldn't wait to see if I had another infection with this batch. No sour taste and, even though it's so green, it is tasty as all heck. It's going to be a good beer after two more weeks and a week in the 'fridge.

I soaked the bottles in a bucket of Star San and sanitized everything in it. It seems to have turned the trick. I'm back in business, baby!

He's back! I had a streak of infected batches and beat it too. Welcome to good beer health.

Good deal Chuck, glad things cleaned up for you. I've been busy cleaning all of my brewing equipment too, because in a few weeks I'm going to fill all my fermenters with brew.

Good news, Chuck! Congrats on getting back on board.

I recently chucked one of my LBKs because I suspected it had micro-scratches and was infected. I've had two gusher batches I can trace to that LBK, and that's enough for me. Now I need to ramp up production and get the pipeline robust and healthy before spring arrives.

Great news! I pour a solution of star san into a spray bottle ... and just spray the inside of the bottle, roll around and pour the little bit out. I save a ton on starsan. It works just as good.

That's also how I sanitize the insides of my fermenter pales. Just spray the inside surfaces, then gently wipe the starsan the falls to the bottom around with a starsan sprayed paper towel ... never had an infection, and a small container of starsan lasts FOREVER.

I made up a solution of an ounce of Star San in four gallons of water (a little over-kill but I'm not going to worry about that) in my bottling bucket. Then I dunked as many bottles in the bucket holding them under until they filed with solution. Once the bucket was full I took the bottles out in the order that I put them in, drained them and set them in my tree. Then I putt the caps into a bowl and filled that with solution and set it off to the side until needed. I put the dis-assembled end of my bottling wand into a glass and filled that with solution. Then I put my spoon, bottling wand stem and auto-siphon into the bucket - running solution through the auto-siphon - and let all that soak while I boiled my sugar solution.

I think that in dunking the bottles in the solution I sanitized the two things that may have been causing a lot of my problems: My hands.

For those that care (probably no one), I've done the math on figuring out cost.

If you buy a quart of StarSan at the price of $15.99, it works out to 10 cents per gallon of solution.

That's less than 1/2 the cost of Easy Clean / One Step. I used a pound of One Step over about 20 batches, figure a gallon for bottling and a gallon for brewing, so that's 40 gallons or 10 cents per gallon.

The big differences are that StarSan lasts for weeks (not a week sealed like One Step) and that StarSan takes a lot less to do the job and does it quicker.

I don't like how the bottle foams over the top when filling, it makes more of a mess. But it is nice having a spray bottle of it.

Learned a new trick today.

Maybe this is one of those "DUH" moments but the last bottling I did I used Star San for the first time. I dunked my bottles in to a bucket of solution, let them sit a minute or two and then poured the solution out of the bottles and back into the bucket. Well the foam (bubbles) in the bottles was really a PITA as I had to over flow each bottle at filling to get the foam out of the bottles. This time I did the same thing except when I poured the solution out of the bottles I did it slowly - like I was pouring a beer without disturbing the trub - and the foam (bubbles) is non-existent.

I use the Vinator and find that there's foam left even if they've been sitting on the bottle tree for 15 minutes. I agree it's annoying, but I'm not dunking 50 bottles.

This is one reason I usually use one-step on bottles. I do like starsan a lot though and use it on almost everything. I was told at My LHBS the other day that there is something a lot like starsan out there but with less foaming, Do any of you know what that might be? When I go back I'll check into it.

RickBeer wrote:I use the Vinator and find that there's foam left even if they've been sitting on the bottle tree for 15 minutes. I agree it's annoying, but I'm not dunking 50 bottles.

Yeah, I can see your point there. But with the troubles I've been having I decided to go "all in" and sanitize everything in sight. With dunking the bottles I get the added bonus of sanitizing my hands at the same time.

For bottling, a Vinator is one of those items you will really wish you had gotten sooner. If you've got a wish list of brewing items to acquire, I highly recommend putting this towards the top of the list.


Rick