Another Starsan Quetion.

[Coffeeuk]

I've used starsan for years and never had a problem with head retention. Perhaps use it properly?


"goes slimy"

yeah you are doing something wrong. Sort out your process and use it properly. Are you using really alkaline water?

To be clear we are talking about shop bought water here. Specifically Tesco Ashbeck water. It used to stay crystal clear for ages, now it doesn't.

This is my starsan after 2 months. Made using RO water from my unit.



This is what Tesco Ashbeck goes like after two days, and specifically Tesco, I've not tried Asda Ashbeck. Basically like bath water. The ph may be 2.2 but there's no way I'd use it as no rinse for my kegs. Yes it will kill the bugs, but your effectively adding soap in there.

[Hanglow]

Ah ok,

I imagine they must get water for the ashbeck brand from different places then, bit naughty of them if so although to be expected from Tesco I suppose

[orlando]

Ah ok,

I imagine they must get water for the ashbeck brand from different places then, bit naughty of them if so although to be expected from Tesco I suppose

Peckham?

[jaroporter]

Yep no clouding for me either with ashbeck. As far as i understand, the clouding is the surfactant coming out of solution, which makes it ineffective to use cloudy starsan regardless of pH..

[Halfacrem]

Yep no clouding for me either with ashbeck. As far as i understand, the clouding is the surfactant coming out of solution, which makes it ineffective to use cloudy starsan regardless of pH..

I keep reading this on Home Brew forums. My Starsan always goes cloudy when I use it with my tap water. I've had no problems over the past few Years. That may, of course just be luck on my part. However, having never seen anything from Fivestar confirming or denying this, I have sent them an email for some clarification.

[Halfacrem]

A very quick response from Five Star. And one that doesn't cause me concern for the cloudiness in my starsan.

EDIT: I've edited this to remove the email address from Five Star. Didn't want spam bots picking this up. Contact details are available from the Five Star website.

to me
Hi Martin,

Thank you for contacting Five Star. The cloudiness that you are experiencing when making a solution is the acids in the Starsan reacting with the minerals in the water. It is still effective, however if you would like to prevent that you can use RO water or distilled water. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks,

Rebecca Ozirsky
Five Star Chemicals & Supply, Inc.
4915 E 52nd Ave
Commerce City, CO 80022
Direct: 303-962-7512
Office: 303-287-0186
Fax: 303-287-0391

[orlando]

A very quick response from Five Star. And one that doesn't cause me concern for the cloudiness in my starsan.

Rebecca Ozirsky <rebecca@fivestarchemicals.com>
3:13 PM (5 minutes ago)

to me
Hi Martin,

Thank you for contacting Five Star. The cloudiness that you are experiencing when making a solution is the acids in the Starsan reacting with the minerals in the water. It is still effective, however if you would like to prevent that you can use RO water or distilled water. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks,

Rebecca Ozirsky
Five Star Chemicals & Supply, Inc.
4915 E 52nd Ave
Commerce City, CO 80022
Direct: 303-962-7512
Office: 303-287-0186
Fax: 303-287-0391
rebecca@fivestarchemicals.com

Charlie Tallow of 5 Star invented this stuff and I have heard him say the same thing. It's high iron and manganese that causes this, but he makes the point that it's only when a SS solution reaches a pH of 3.5 that it no longer is as effective, hence the <3 recommendation. The "slimy" reaction is the "soap" base of the product, the other being phosphoric acid. He describes this by saying that the surface of the plastic has microscopic holes and that if you had a microscope powerful enough you can see it being deposited in them, giving the appearance and feel of "slime". It in no way affects its effectiveness. By the way, he says it does not kill head retention either. OK, you may argue that is a Christine Keeler defence but I think he would have been found out by now, the product has been around for decades and used by brewers of all kinds for a very long time. There are plenty of much more likely candidates than Starsan.

[jaroporter]

Fair enough well done for checking. I thought i had read it as coming from fivestar but clearly misinformed somewhere

[Coffeeuk]

I think I'll stick to using the crystal clear stuff. I can only speak from experience of using it cloudy, listening to people say it was OK under a certain PH, it's the only time I've had head retention problems and I make the same recipes over and over. My beers don't suffer from head retention normally



And to be clear. I'm talking cloudy from using Tesco Ashbeck here. I can't speak for other situations where it might go cloudy.

[orlando]

That's not a good example, darker beers tend to have better head retention across the board. I still maintain that head retention is not affected by Starsan, there are many reasons in the process as a whole that can affect it including afterwards, carbonation levels and glasses that aren't squeeky clean e.g.. I don't see how you can single out Starsan as the culprit when there are so many other potential pitfalls. We will have to agree to disagree.

[Jocky]

Starsan in Ashbeck, mixed a couple of months back (at least). No sign of cloudiness:

While on the subject of head retention, I recently found that I was almost certainly killing my head with residual cooking fat left in the pan I was using to make up my priming sugar. I now have a pan purely for this and starter preparation.

[Andy]

I was almost certainly milling my head

Ouch

[rpt]

Peckham?

So that's why my Starsan solution glows in the dark.