Star San - why isn't there an equivalent product in the UK?

[harvs]

Star San sounds like it's the perfect homebrew sanitiser to me...

It sanitises in a a few seconds (< half a minute)
It's no rinse
You only need a very low concentration
It keeps for quite a while and tells you if it's no longer working (goes cloudy)
And, it provides some food for the yeast if left in your bottles!

So, why don't more people import it to the UK? Or why doesn't someone in the UK produce a similar product?

Am I missing something?

[Graham]

As far as i'm aware, there is no exact equivilent in the UK and the 'secret ingredient' continues to remain secret.

Propylene glycol would be a good secret ingredient.

[harvs]

Ah, that's interesting Chris.

I was thinking that I could take my 'visually' clean bottles and give them a quick squirt of star san and job done. I'm currently submersing my bottles in a solution of ritchies steriliser for 10 minutes per batch (12 bottles in a batch = 40 mins total). So I thought the star san approach would save me quite a bit of time.

But if you're saying that you'd recommend using another cleaner as well as the star san, then I may as well stick to my current set up

[mysterio]

In response to harvs, I'm sure you said Chris that you rinse out your bottles after use, give them a squirt with bleach solution, then when they're ready for bottling day, rinse again and give them a squirt with star-san. This is what i've been doing anyway and it seems to work well.

I've tried everything with bottles. I've even baked 50 champagne bottles in the oven (in several batches). Don't do this. Do the above.

Iodophor works well too but unless you're following TRUE no-rinse concentration then you should always rinse with some boiled water. I always rinse it.

[rick_huggins]

Cleanliness is next to good beear right?

I wash/sterilise with VWP then rinse but wanna use Star San right before use; just for ease of mind but am facing the same sourcing troubles.

[KevP]

I'm currently using Te$co's own Milton rip off, its a big bottle, less than a quid and a known content ratio, its also easy rinse and I'm happy with it.