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Hi guys I have a question, I just brewed Omnipollo 2:14 clone, and the recipe calls for 1.3 kg of raspberries, I soaked the bag in the starsan,roughly sprayed the frozen raspberry with starsan too and put it in the wort in a bag.Now it’s time to dry hop so I’m wondering if it’s okay to spray with starsan a tip of a bag which is sticking out of the wort cos the raspberries made it float on the top even I put the weight in.I just worry about if some nasties can grow on the top of it ,or CO 2 environment is safe for five days.

Thanx and cheers!

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Starsan IIRC is a mix of phosphoric acid and a wetting agent (surfactant) to get the solution to stick to the walls of a vessel. While one might be able to do it - I do not advise using starsan to sterilise anything other than brewing equipment - most usefully brewing vessels. Spraying starsan on raspberries is not a particularly useful procedure as it cannot sterilise them internally.

IMHO starsan is about as effective as boiling water in most instances. I advise not using starsan on nylon hop or fruit bags. A quick dip/swirl of the bag in boiling water (or cold water and microwave) is adequate.

Also it is worth noting that one can get too paranoid or place too much emphasis on making everything totally sterile. Beer was brewed well long before StarSan, bleach or pasteurisation was discovered. Yes there were occasional rejected batches (as there still are when using sterilisers) but in the main the brewing process was repeatable enough that people in past centuries made it in a simple fashion using basic hygiene.

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  • Thank you, great info. I never did the microwave yet.How to do it properly?
    – Iacovlev
    Jun 20 '18 at 20:33
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    basically make the bag wet (eg dip in water) then microwave the thing for about 1 minute on full. The microwave heats the water to steam which sterilises the bag. YMMV. A friend swears that it should be done in a container (like a plastic box with snap lid) so that the steam builds up a bit to make sure all is very hot. But beware that although this does work the lid may "POP!" off the container.
    – barking.pete
    Jun 21 '18 at 15:40
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I don't think it would do much harm to your beer. I heard that STarsan is a good yeast nutrient.

Regarding the floating bag: why not push the bag down with a santized spoon, or something. Do it couple of times per day. The fruits will soak up the beer and - sooner or later - stop floating. At least thats what I heard sour beer brewers are doing.

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  • Thanx, I might do that!
    – Iacovlev
    Jun 12 '18 at 6:29

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