Best Star SAN Alternative including all new Chemsan

MalvernDan said:

I have dropped a tweet to the manufacturer and will post back if I get a reply.

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kelper said:

Who is the maker? I could not find any info.

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Justin Dean said:

1ml per litre it is then. I have just bought 2 litres as it as half price . Should last ages

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LeeH said:

Have you measured the pH at that dilution?

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Starsan is a "sanitiser", it has no active cleaning ingredients at all. It must not be used alone, but makes a great final rinse so you don't have to worry that it's a few hours since the equipment was subjected to a cleaning regime or that there are bugs in the rinsing water (tap water?) used to wash off the cleaning chemicals/residues. It works by having a pH of less than 3 which the majority of bugs cannot tolerate. The likes of Starsan will have "surfactants" to make it "wetter" so bugs find it difficult to hide under microscopic layers of air (but they continue to hide very well under microscopic layers of grease and dirt). Starsan uses phosphoric acid to drop the pH and dodecylbenzene-sulfonic acid as a wetting agent.

Yeasts are a bug that will also use the trick of dropping the pH of what it is in to limit competition from other bugs, hence the likes of Starsan are very limited in effect against yeasts (and some other bugs).

The likes of PBW and VWP are cleaners (but will also sanitise and also need rinsing off). They use oxygen or chlorine as active cleaning/bleaching principles (and which also have a "kill" action). PBW also has a grease shifting component, chlorine-based cleaners have reasonable grease shifting capabilities anyway (and highly caustic cleaners like sodium hydroxide are particularly good at shifting grease).

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Five Star Star San

Five Star Chemicals product Star San is a popular acid anionic sanitizer sold to homebrewers because of its relative safety and ease of use. Claims that acid anionic sanitizers are not effective at killing yeast have been made on various internet forums [36][37][38]. These claims are cited in various food science pamphlets, blogs, and websites, and appear to be based on the food science textbooks, "Principles of Food Sanitation," by Norman G. Marriott and Robert B. Gravani (2006) and "Basic Food Microbiology" by George Banward (1989), which contain conflicting information about the effectiveness of acid anionic sanitizers. Neither of these textbooks contain experimental data nor references to experimental data. The statements in these books conflict with each other. Marriott and Gravani claim, "(Acid anionic sanitizers) have limited and varied antimicrobial activity (including poor yeast and mold activity)... The antimicrobial effect of acid anionics appears to be through reaction of the surfactant, with positively charged bacteria by ionic attraction to penetrate cell walls and disrupt cellular function." Banward's claims of acid anionic sanitizers are, "Advantages: Active against a wide spectrum of microorganisms including thermodurics, controis phage and most yeast strains. Disadvantages: Slow activity against sporeformers, not effective in destruction of most spores." Furthermore, the provided explanation, which is that acid anionic sanitizers supposedly don't work effectively against yeast and molds is because acid anionic sanitizers are negatively charged and yeast are also negatively charged yet bacteria is killed because it is positively charged, is biologically incorrect (this masters thesis appears to be the source of this incorrect information). According to Dr. Bryan Heit of Sui Generis blog, both yeast and bacteria have negatively charged cell walls, and this fact has been well established in microbiology since the 1940's (Dr. Heit has published several peer-reviewed scientific studies on cell wall polarity).

Star San has only been officially tested by Five Star Chemicals against the pathogenic bacteria species E. coli and S. Aureus, which is the minimum baseline required by the EPA to be labeled a "sanitizer" [39]. While we are not aware of any publicly available published studies on the efficacy of StarSan to kill yeast, several studies with other acid anionic sanitizers have confirmed that they are effective against yeast. Lee et al. (2007) found that an acid sanitizer very similar to Star San that uses citric acid instead of phosphate but the same surfactant (sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate) took 5 minutes to kill Saccharomyces cerevisiae, E. coli, and Listeria innocua at room temperature (some species were killed faster than others with the E. coli actually being more resistant than the yeast), and one minute if the sanitizer was heated to 40°C on both metal and LDPE plastic (they compared the acid anionic sanitizer to 35% hydrogen peroxide, which killed all organisms with 15 seconds, indicating that this acid anionic sanitizer is effective at killing yeast, but it takes longer than a stronger chemical such as hydrogen peroxide). This study did not make mention of biofilms, however, the cultures were allowed to grow and dry overnight which could have allowed for biofilm formation [40]. Five star also recommends 5 minutes of contact time with Star San. Winniczuk et al. (1997) found that three phosphoric acid anionic sanitizers ("CS-100" and "CS-101-lf" by Chemical Systems of Florida, and "Clear-Clean" by Pelican Brand) were less effective at killing yeast than bacteria in the timeframe tested (1 minute contact time), but they were still effective at killing yeast at high concentrations (peracetic acid also required a higher concentration to kill yeast than bacteria). However, one of the acid anionic sanitizers tested was more effective than the other two, indicating that the chemical makeup of the particular acid anionic sanitizer has an impact on how effective it is as a sanitizer relative to other acid anionic sanitizers. Additionally, they found that peracetic acid, iodophor, and chlorine dioxide required less concentration than the acid anionic sanitizers to be effective (again, tested at 1 minute exposure time) [41].

See this MTF thread for a more extensive explanation of why skepticism should be applied to the claim that acid anionic sanitizers are not effective at killing yeast.

Tips for using Star San:

1. Completely remove all soils as soon as possible from equipment after use using an effective cleaning agent.
2. Apply Star San before using the already cleaned equipment.
3. Dilute the Star San in distilled or reverse osmosis water so that the pH is not buffered by chemicals in tap water.
4. Leave in contact with surfaces for 5 minutes or more.
5. Optional: warm the Star San and water solution to 40°C/104°F.

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Sadfield said:

Found this on Milkthefunk, that might contain some info, and links, relative to the subject.


http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Quality_Assurance

So, I guess you could use lemon juice, but it may require a long contact time.

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