Sanitizer solution in beer. WTF

[brewinhard]

To avoid this problem in the future you might want to try switching to a one -piece S-shaped airlock filled with a small amount of starsan before cold crashing. That way when you get the pressure differential, the sanitizer will not be sucked back into your beer.

[loadmaster]

i took oswalds advice and racked the beer out from under the layer of sanitizer on top. i think there may have been some off flavors but it was not enough to keep me from drinking it. thanks for the help

[Ozwald]

i took oswalds advice and racked the beer out from under the layer of sanitizer on top. i think there may have been some off flavors but it was not enough to keep me from drinking it. thanks for the help

Thanks for getting my name wrong, dick! (just joking)

It takes a bit of it to be noticeable. I think the only time I dumped a StarSan beer was when I left about a cup or three in the bottom of the keg (& only realized it when it was full too soon). Good on maun-ing up. Drink that shit!

"I make my friends drink my mistakes." -almost every homebrewer in history

[Effingbeer]

Get some stoppers that do not have a hole. Switch out before going into fridge. Using an S shaped airlock will only reduce the amount sucked back in to the volume of the airlock. The differential pressure is in the headspace, not the temperature difference between the liquid in the carboy and the blowoff.
And you can't rack from under StarSan. It is water soluble. It will not float on the top. StarSan is fairly safe, even at that amount. It will probably give you amazing soapy head retention.

[Ozwald]

Get some stoppers that do not have a hole. Switch out before going into fridge. Using an S shaped airlock will only reduce the amount sucked back in to the volume of the airlock. The differential pressure is in the headspace, not the temperature difference between the liquid in the carboy and the blowoff.
And you can't rack from under StarSan. It is water soluble. It will not float on the top. StarSan is fairly safe, even at that amount. It will probably give you amazing soapy head retention.

A solid stopper could create more problems. With the tiny amount that might get sucked in with an S-airlock, I'd still recommend that over a solid stopper. And you can rack from under StarSan if it's stratified as it was in this case - which also proves that it will float on top to some degree. If he had let it set for a longer period of time it would have blended itself in (which I'm sure it did to some extent), but as long as it stays stratified, you can at least separate most of it.

[Effingbeer]

A solid stopper could create more problems. With the tiny amount that might get sucked in with an S-airlock, I'd still recommend that over a solid stopper.

What kind of problems? I have never had one get vacuumed on too tight or sucked in. I do it all the time.

[Ozwald]

A solid stopper could create more problems. With the tiny amount that might get sucked in with an S-airlock, I'd still recommend that over a solid stopper.

What kind of problems? I have never had one get vacuumed on too tight or sucked in. I do it all the time.

That's why I said 'could'. In theory you're probably ok, but with the tiny amount of sanitizer from an S-airlock you'll definitely be ok without potential hazards. The problem with theory is that we're never working with ideal circumstances. You still risk a stuck stopper (I've had a couple, they're a bitch). In the worst case scenario someone working with an aged, over-stressed carboy could even crack it. That stopper rubber isn't all that pliable at cooler temps & it could happen. That being said, it's not the most likely of circumstances, but personally I only take calculated risks & even with a small chance of something bad happening, I'll take a safer route if it's available - in this case the S-airlock which won't create a vacuum and has about the same chances of sucking in a negligible amount of sanitizer as getting a solid stopper stuck.

All that considered, I don't advocate crashing before packaging in the first place. Even though I'm not doing it commercially, I brew nano-style. Since I don't have a dedicated bright tank, I use keg clarifiers & rack into them at room temp. When I bottled, I waited until I had reasonably clear beer & moved the fermenter to the transfer spot a day ahead of time. It had a day to resettle anything that might have gotten kicked up & I was still racking clear beer to the bottling bucket. IMO, cold crashing for packaging is as necessary as using a secondary fermenter. Sure you can do it, there may be a couple of minor advantages, but again calculating/weighing the risk vs benefits I don't find it to be in good practice.

I'm not saying what you're doing is wrong - just like with most homebrewing steps, if it works for you, in your situation, on your system, by all means do it - I personally just wouldn't recommend it to others.