sterilising with bleach and vinegar

[jclowes]

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Re: Bottle Rinser??

Postby MightyMouth on Sun Nov 16, 2008 4:44 pm

I got mine from Beertech.co.uk but they don't seem to have it listed anymore.

As an alternative, apparently you can use a mixture of 5 gallons of water, 30ml of thin household bleach and 30ml of white vinegar as a no rinse sanitiser. You must mix it by adding the 30ml of bleach to the water, mix thoroughly then add the 30ml of vinegar and mix thoroughly, never mix the bleach and vinegar directly and do not deviate from the ratios otherwise you can gas yourself. This information comes from Charlie Talley the founder of Five Star Chemical, the makers of Star San. He detailed it in this Basic Brewing Podcast. He starts talking about it at about 19 minutes into the pod cast and mentions at 22 minutes in that it is a no rinse solution providing that you are at just 80 PPM which is 1 oz or 30ml/5 gallons. He also mentions that the required contact time of this bleach solution is just 30 seconds. Seeing as how cheap thin bleach and White vinegar are this seems like an ideal solution. I think the key here is to use exactly 30ml each of bleach and vinegar/US gallon and ensure that the bleach and the vinegar are fresh. It is an interesting discussion so its worth listening to the whole thing.
Drinking -Gut Rot Cider (Young's, it's nasty stuff, wife drinks it though)
Drinking - SNPA
Conditioning - Nothing
Fermenting - Whitbread's London Porter "
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For this do you have to use white vinegar? I'v just been in my local morrisans and they dont do any large tubs of the white just the noraml malt vinagar ?

thanks

[Graham]

For this do you have to use white vinegar? I'v just been in my local morrisans and they dont do any large tubs of the white just the noraml malt vinagar ?
thanks

No, but it should be 5% vinegar. The only vinegar that I have found that specifies its strength is Sarsons. A lot of the "value" brands and unspecified vinegar is likely to be under strength. Both Sarsons white and malt vinegar is available in most, if not all, supermarkets but only in 1 pint bottles. White vinegar is specified because it will be free from any additional flavourings that are sometimes added to some vinegars, particularly pickling vinegars, but that should not worry us. If you are looking for gallon bottles you may have to take pot luck as to its strength. If you are lucky enough to find one with the percentage of acetic acid specified, just compensate accordingly.

[KevP]

How is this relation to an article I just read over at Irish Craft Brewer (ok its over 2 years old!! But I'm a slow reader )
http://www.irishcraftbrewer.com/communi ... .php?t=196

[Invalid Stout]

I contacted Jeyes who told me that the concentration in "Brobat Thin Bleach" as sold in Morrisons for 28p is 1.1%, so you'd need roughly 5 times as much as StarSan bloke recommends. That US laundry bleach must be aggressive stuff.

Apropos the strength of vinegar: you can get strong spirit vinegar in Polish shops and the concentration of acetic acid is generally on the label. It'll be called "Ocet spirytusowy 10%" or something like that.

I'd still do my sums very carefully before trying this out.