Logically, I feel I know the outcome of this scenario and it is devastating but would like to get input anyway. Before brewing yesterday I grabbed an empty spray bottle for sanitizing solution and soaked in one step to clean since I did not know the last time it was used so thought a cleaning wouldn't hurt. Grabbed it later for and prepared a Star San solution to spray for post boil sanitizing of all my equipment. Today I noticed the bottle had a smell of household cleaner, which I hadn't noticed the day before. So I feel it would be silly to jeopardize my (and others) health as I can not be sure if I introduced any harmful chemicals to my beer. Will have to make sure that I use spray bottles that have only ever been used for sanitizer going forward. What thought does anyone have on this? As I feel I already know the answer feel free to share your stories of botched batches. It can only help me feel better
I would obviously recommend using new bottles for sani solutions (just because it seems the safest) but often times if you just thoroughly rinse and wash a basic plastic bottle, fill with hot water, rinse, fill with hto water, rinse, repeat, it should be fine. Personally, I haven't suffered a botched batch from chemicals yet... I had one issue with extremely excess sweetness and diacetyl that was possibly a sanitation issue, but am not really sure. Anyway, maybe this will help? http://www.recyclethis.co.uk/201107...pray-bottle-is-really-clean-before-reusing-it
At the time, I was thinking actually that this was an unused one as it was empty. Should have done my sniff test earlier. You are right, the cost is very minimal to not take chances with it.
Do you have any idea what the household cleaner was? For now, it's just the odor of the cleaner on the bottle that tells you that something is wrong? No smell of the cleaner from the beer yet? A 5-gallon batch?
@Mothergoose03 Just the odor of the cleaner in the bottle. There was a small amount of star san left so I was just going to dump it out and rinse the spray bottle. Smelled it and thought that star san should not have a piney odor. Beer smells fine as far as I can tell. It is two 5 gallon batches.
I doubt anything is wrong with your beer. Since you did not dump cleaning solution in your beer there shouldn't be any flavor in it. All of my fermenting buckets smell like pale ale but it does not come through when I brew a Pilsner.
X Thanks, I will ride it out. Ferm looks to be going as it should. Will report back how they turn out.
My spray bottles are recycled from an all-purpose kitchen cleaner, though admittedly it's a mild, environmentally-friendly one. There was a bit of a scent at first, but I've used the older of the two for about 8 batches and I've never noticed any issues with it. I rinsed the bottle out thoroughly a few times before filling with StarSan and the smell has faded to almost nothing now.
Tasted the beers when taking gravity readings and could not taste any issues (also did not die ).. Ferm went as expected, Will be dry hopping this week and then packaging.
