Todd,
I apologize if the tone of my last post was inappropriately sarcastic. Hadn't had my coffee yet. As if that's an excuse.
When I said I'd "never heard the myth," I meant this specific argument, that somehow the culprits are necessarily presumed to be the surfactants and electric charges. I'd never heard of this proposed explanation, taken up as the only one to be countered in the presentation. This counterargument seems to miss the outstanding points that a) spores are still a potential problem and b) there's empirical evidence that Star San is not reliably effective against some organisms other than spores due to some mechanism, and if not the one disproved in this presentation, then there must be some other; so that this presentation, while factual, is not dispositive of the question of whether Star San is as effective as halogen based sanitizers in the brewery.
As to a) If you are concerned with possible infection in your brewery, the most common airborne source you need to be concerned about, that may escape acid sanitizers, is wild yeast (far more sporulant that domesticated) and mold spores. If you sanitize equipment, then fill with wort, surviving spores may be present in the wort. Hence iodophor the better choice.
As to b) The thing that concerns me about effectiveness on other than spores is the evidence of mold growth in Star San solution. It may be anecdotal, but it's actually happened to me, so I'm convinced it's a real phenomenon which seems to require further investigation. (OTOH, I have also read purely anecdotal reports of breweries experiencing unexpected loss of viability in yeast stored in brinks containing residual Star San. Again I'd like to see more rigorous studies.)
I do use Star San in a spray bottle for quick use on fittings and such. Just not as my primary sanitizer. And again, iodophor is cheap.
And sorry to derail a simple thread about the risk associated with airlock suckback. That's still negligible.
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