Acidified Household Bleach

[maxashton]

I was facinated with the discussion that sprung up around this subject in another thread, so thought i'd start a new one.

I made a test batch of acidified bleach by diluting 6.5ml of bleach in 5 litres of water, and then acidifying with 6.5mls of distilled malt vinegar.

The resultant solution was used to sanitize two pint glasses and some glass ramekins, all spotlessly cleaned beforehand.

I left them in for 60 seconds (this solution should sanitize in 30), and turned them out onto a drying rack. The smell of bleach wasn't strong on the solution, but when i came to the items in the morning, they smelled very noticeably of bleach. I'd be rinsing the hell out of it if it were my FV.

I thought perhaps i'd read the wrong dilutions or misunderstood, so i emailed Charlie at Five Star Chemicals. He told me i could on Basic Brewing Radio.

He told me that with 6.5mls of 5% acetic, i could use half the amount of bleach, so 3.25mls of bleach.

I'm going to test this out perhaps tonight, and let you know my findings.

Thanks to Charlie!

[BigEd]

Hmmmm......I understand the guy from Five Star has to be an expert in these matters but I have always understood that you never want to add an acid to bleach and vice versa. Adding an acid to bleach (aqueous sodium hypochlorite) releases elemental chlorine, not something you want to be around. With so many good homebrew sanitizing products available today like Iodophor and Star-San why would you want to risk it?

[maxashton]

If you were to mix those proportions of bleach and acid together you would indeed release lots of chlorine.

When you mix sodium hypochlorite with water, you are trying to get the hypochorite to evolve hypochloric acid. By adding the acid to the diluted hypochorite solution, you quickly convert much of it to hypocholric acid, which is the compound that does the killing.

This kind of solution is very effective as long as it's PH is below 5, and requires only 30 seconds contact time. It's also much much cheaper per litre than is Star-San, or Iodophor.

60P for a bottle of vinegar, 30 p for a bottle of thin bleach.

[Andy]

The radio guy made it very clear that you don't under any circumstances add the acid direct to the bleach - he was very clear about that. You add the bleach to the water and then add the acid to the bleach/water mixture. When you do that there is no problem. I tried this the other night, I added 8ml of bleach to 5L of water followed by 8ml of white vinegar. There was a slight bleach smell but not great. I used the solution to sanitise two cornies and didn't rinse the solution but let it drip dry (as the Start San guy said you could do). When dry there was no bleach smell at all.

[maxashton]

When Betadine goes out, DaaB, the straight replacement is Videne, available at boots. Cheap.

This isn't so much intended to be "better" than iodophors, but an alternative.

More sanitisers is always better than less.

[SteveD]

I've heard that the rays from a 30 megahurt definite-kill photroazon cannon can be used to sterilise brewing equipment...just off to get one. I'll have to prise it off the Vogons first, though.

[Andy]

[maxashton]

Make sure your ears are surgically removed beforehand, you don't want to get any Vogon poetry in you.

[Paul_S]

I'm glad I'm not the only one to use bleach (heck, it's 28p for 2 litres of Smart Price in Asda). I use the thin, cheap stuff as I don't want those surfactants lingering & wrecking my head. I didn't know about the acidification issue so I'm keen to give this a try.

[oblivious]

The radio guy made it very clear that you don't under any circumstances add the acid direct to the bleach - he was very clear about that. You add the bleach to the water and then add the acid to the bleach/water mixture. When you do that there is no problem. I tried this the other night, I added 8ml of bleach to 5L of water followed by 8ml of white vinegar. There was a slight bleach smell but not great. I used the solution to sanitise two cornies and didn't rinse the solution but let it drip dry (as the Start San guy said you could do). When dry there was no bleach smell at all.

Did the bleach/water mixture work out ok and was 5l enough to sanitize the kegs?

I was planning to do a similar thing this weekend.

[Andy]

Yes, it was fine. You could drop the bleach content down to 5ml (for 5L water) apparently and still get the same result.

Remember: On no account add the vinegar directly to the bleach or vice-versa. The bleach MUST be added to the water.

[itmustbemagic]

I too listened to the podcast re the bleach and vinegar and have used this on my last brew. Worked a treat. Just make sure you add the bleach to the water and the same with the vinegar. (thin bleach that is!)

[oblivious]

It’s a nice method all right and saves all that time of rinsing out bottles!

[oblivious]

I use Milton, the bottle say it’s a no rinse sanitizer

[oblivious]

You're kidding, that has to be the worst stuff around. More people seem to have spoiled more batches with that stuff than anything else. It definitely needs rinsing and rinsing well, more so than bleach.

How did it spoil the beer?