BeerBorg

My outdoor sink empties onto my driveway and the drain water has stained my driveway. I was able to get the blacktop looking good again by power washing it, but I'm leaning toward having the drain water run down the grass alongside the house to the curb. Although 90% of what goes down the drain is water I also dump my sanitizer, oxyclean solution and trub left over from brewing down there too. I'd like to get anyone's thoughts on this before trying it and possibly killing the grass, its easier power washing the blacktop in that case.

That's a good question that I don't have an answer for. I've dumped mine down the drain so I don't have any experience on whether it will kill any grass or plants. I do think PBW does as I dump it out from my keg onto my lawn and though it doesn't really kill it, it seems to hinder lots of new growth.

Beer-lord wrote:That's a good question that I don't have an answer for. I've dumped mine down the drain so I don't have any experience on whether it will kill any grass or plants. I do think PBW does as I dump it out from my keg onto my lawn and though it doesn't really kill it, it seems to hinder lots of new growth.

Yeah I once read the slick greasy feeling PBW leaves on your fingers is actually your skin sloughing off, not the gentlest sounding cleaner so its probably caustic enough to kill vegetation back too.

my sink empties into my yard. I dump star san like you do, and I have seen no dead grass from the drain down the last 2 summers. never used pbw

StarSan's acid base cannot be good for a lawn.

star sans manufacturers (I read) routinely go on tours to promote their product and demonstrate its safety by whipping up a batch and drinking some. the amount of acid in it is probably around that of the phosphoric acid in coke or pepsi. I dump rinse water with star san in it on my lawn with no problem. I don't even wear gloves when working with it. while it stings a little on open cuts or cracks, it does no harm to skin. my thinking is that if it cant harm yeast, it probably wont kill grass... but that is just a guess. remember too that in all likelihood the star san being flushed onto the lawn has been diluted in 5 gallons of water.

I think everyone is different. For me star san gives me a rash, where one-step, although it leaves my fingers feeling slick, does not give me a rash.

Interesting.

Beer-lord wrote:That's a good question that I don't have an answer for. I've dumped mine down the drain so I don't have any experience on whether it will kill any grass or plants. I do think PBW does as I dump it out from my keg onto my lawn and though it doesn't really kill it, it seems to hinder lots of new growth.

PBW is an alkaline cleaner. It is very bad for vegetation.

So I'm thinking typical working strength StarSan and OxyClean solutions won't harm or kill grass or vegetation and are safe to runoff on the lawn.

The few times I use PBW I'll dump it down the house plumbing just to be safe.

ScrewyBrewer wrote:So I'm thinking typical working strength StarSan and OxyClean solutions won't harm or kill grass or vegetation and are safe to runoff on the lawn.

I would think this too. My basement sink is tied into my floor drain and footer drain and ends up in the road side ditch. I use the sink for all my brewing cleaning, Starsan, one step, bleach, hand soap, trub and whatever else. Always a lot of green growing at the end of the pipe. So I'm guessing it shouldn't hurt your lawn atleast not on a highly concentrated amount.

I don't know if it would kill it directly, but as run off I bet over time StarSan will lower the pH enough that whatever is trying to grow there, won't thrive. But, that could take years for all I know.

I would think of it this way Screwy:

It is like your treating brew water thread where you are trying to find the right balance for the type of beer you are brewing at the time. PH pretty much rules there and so it would with the stuff going out the drain.

If you JUST poured Star San out then where ever the pipe ended is going to receive a lot of acid heavy liquid; if the plants that are there like an acid soil they might be happy ( when we lived in NC we used to have to feed/acidify plants - I think it was the Rhodedendrons - but not sure).

If you are draining to grass it probably won't like high acid BUT if you are sending ALL brew day run off to the same place including lots of plain water you probably aren't going to get a high concentration of any one discharge.

How about this:

Think of all the "stuff" you will dump then maybe don't pour out the Star San or what ever until you are also dumping your chill water and send it all down together in diluted form.

Also if you can attach a movable pipe/hose at the end of the drain pipe you could move slight from one place to another, kind of like crop rotation.

Finally, if it kills grass - dig up the grass and plant something else. (HAH HAH ChuckN Beat you to it )

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this, I will have to put theory to practice on my next brewday. If you can safely drink StarSan in the same strength used for brewing then I'm not thinking there's much to worry about when it comes to killing vegetation. Come to think of it some home brewers already would have posted somewhere that StarSan is a also a good vegetation killer. As for the PBW that'll keep going down the house plumbing until I get time to experiment with running it down the lawn.

It's only November and it's already dipping well below freezing overnight, my brewing days will have to be scheduled to avoid sub freezing temperature days. I don't want to run the risk of the runoff freezing on the sidewalk on its way to the street. It's gonna be an interesting winter finding out if I'll be able to brew or not, more to come..

I would *think* that if it was not safe for grass it would have all sorts of "not safe for septic systems" warnings since if it will kill the grass it probably wouldnt be good for all the microbes needed in a septic tank to keep it churning. In the concentrations we use it is meant to kill a few bugs here and there that may have escaped the washing process, but it is not meant to kill vast majorities in the wild. I have to guess that if you put a shovel full of dirt in your fermenter and squirted it with a standard StarSan mixture it would not be very effective.