How far in advance is it ok to sanitize equipment? If I seal small items in ziplock bags and the keep inside ferment bucket closed? Or should I only sanitize day of? What about bottles, can I sanitize a couple weeks in advance and put foil over top? Also, any reason to wash brand new equipment with no gunk on it, is sanitize only ok? Thanks, Tim
Sanitizers lose their effectiveness after a certain period of time, therefore it's best to sanitize before use. As for bottles you can probably get away with it as long as they're completely dry - bacteria needs water to live - and with the very off chance that something might go wrong and you'd lose one or two. As to cleaning new equipment, I'd do it as you never know where it's been or what's on it.
I would wash any thing that I just purchased, this goes for non-beer related stuff also, wharehouses are dirty. Lots of people sanitize bottles by heating them in the oven with a bit of foil on the top, these would likely be fine for weeks or months as long as the foil stays in place. If it is something small, I would just sanitize on brewday, but if you are careful, you can do it ahead of time and then seal up the ziplock. This would be easiest with StarSan, spray some in the bag get everything covered/soaked and seal it up. This way everything inside of the bag is dead, as long as the seal holds, nothing else should get in. Honestly, the easiest thing is a cheap spray bottle from homedepot filled with StarSan. I buy a gallon of distilled water and make a gallon batch at a time, then just fill the spray bottle from the jug. Very easy to sanitize as you go since you just need to wet the surface.
I sanitize everything but the brew pot on brew day (I am exclusively extract so I don't know if a mash tun, etc. needs it or not), and then on bottling day I sanitize everything that day. It's all part of the show.
The thing that I sanitize for the longest is the fermentation bucket. I spray the crap out of it at the beginning of the boil and put the lid on top. After I'm done chilling, I dump the residual Star San and spray it again before putting my wort in the fermenter. Bottles are within 15 minutes of filling. Bells and whistles are usually right before they're needed.
@VikeMan acutally has an experiment going where he has kept a batch of Star San for a few years and the pH is reading quite low. Maybe he'll comment here.
