rinse sanitizer sol? damn siphon

[vendejp]

I just transferred my first homebrew batch to the secondary (6.5 gal carboy). Ive read that you should rinse after sanitizing with a percobonate, but the instructions on the package say rinsing is not necessary.

what do you guys do? rinse, or not rinse? if you rinse, do you use tap water (probs with unboiled h20)? if not, off flavors?

i had a hell of a time siphoning, took about 3-4 trys to get it right :mad:

ill have to get one of those nifty devices to help siphon.

I must say... I think I will enjoy brewing my own, but its really a pain in the ass.... id prefer to make larger batches or maybe a conical setup so theres not so much fuss. all the sanitizing blows. fortunately, im using a 5 gallon carby, not bottles, so that should be easier.

also, from the sounds of things here, a lot of people use un-boiled tap water to mix with the concentrated wort to get 5 gallons... unless someone screams at me here, i think ill do that on my next batch (tomorrow). this time i boiled the water and had to cool two containers of hot water!!

[toneyc]

Well, you'll get both sides of this, I'm sure...

I rinse with regular tap water. No problems that I can tell.

Problems siphoning? I thought *I* had a sheltered childhood!

An auto-siphon has got to be the niftiest device I've gotten in the 2-3 years I've been at this hobby. And I resisted for so long!

OK, you've confused me.... "5-gallon carboys, not bottles"? Please elaborate.

And I also use regular tap water to top up to 5 gallons, too. I was dumping ice into my brew pot for a while, but the sanitary conditions of my local corner store astonished even me and I have not gotten around to getting more ice trays to make my own ice with so I'm doing the brew pot in the ice bath thing for now.

:)
Toney.

[ray m]

I echo everything that ToneyC said. When I extract brewed I always topped up with water straight from the tap---no boiling or anything with no problems. I also rinsed my carboy with tap water with no problems. What sanitizer are you using now?? If you're using one-step or star-san, no rinsing and no drying is required---the residue/bubbles will not affect the beer at all. If you use iodophor, you don't need to rinse, but I believe that you have to let it air dry after draining the solution out. I used one step for many, many moons before switching to star san for the hell of it. Hope this helps!

[Beerconnoisseur]

I've never rinsed, and I've never experienced any horrible problems. However, I use Iodophor for my sanitizer. Chlorine-based sanitizers like bleach can have noticeable flavor effect if they are not rinsed properly.

I would step up to full-boils, since then you know the water will all be sanitized via boiling, and you won't have to worry about heating/cooling, OR contamination, OR even low specific gravity readings, as was mentioned in another thread. It's just so much easier. Since you can buy a 6 gallon stock pot (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000696J5/qid=1063437903/sr=1-24/ref=sr_1_24/103-2272181-8721449?v=glance&s=kitchen) for $120 or less, and add a spigot (http://www.morebeer.com/detail.php3?pid=WL100) later for a mere $20, there's no good reason not to.

And I will say it again: get an Auto Siphon (http://www.northernbrewer.com/siphon.html) from Northern Brewer. It will be the best $10 you have ever spent.

The other thing you can do to make sanitizer go further is to brew multiple batches in the same afternoon, and pour your sanitizing solution from one carboy to the other. You will eventually have more beer, but if you can't drink it all, you should have more friends. And who can complain with that! :)

[vendejp]

thanks guys....

toney, sorry, i meant a 5 gallon corney, cornelius, or whatever you want to call them.... i picked up some soda kegs and I already have the CO2 equipment.

Raym, im using one step.... maybe ill skip the rinse... we will see how i feel.

ill pick up an autosiphon.... i was just getting some air left in the tube and it caused problems.... i think the prob was i was filling the siphon tube with sanitizing solution, then draining to a jar until the beer had pulled through..... its just not as easy as the good old "suck till the gasoline almost hits your mouth" method.

maybe ill get a 6 gallon kettle down the road. eventually ill probably move to all grain brewing, so we will see.

thanks for the advice and help.

[jsmurphy]

Originally posted by vendejp
maybe ill get a 6 gallon kettle down the road. eventually ill probably move to all grain brewing, so we will see.


You should check out a turkey fryer set up. There are a couple of threads here about them. Lowes has them on sale for about 20.00. The best part is you get a 7.5 gal brew pot.

Ditto on the auto-siphon. They're great.

For sanitizers, I use StarSan. It's a little more costly, but worth it in my opinion.

[ray m]

JS is right...those turkey fryer set-ups are awesome, and they do a great job of full wort boils for a much cheaper price than buying the burner & stainless pot seperately. I wish I got mine a lot sooner. If you're looking at doing all grain in the near future and still find yourself on a budget, I recommend visiting Listermann.com and check out their mash tun set-up. Everything you need for all grain for @ $45. The only thing I added to it to suit my tastes is a big picnic cooler (for mashing) that cost me $20.