Iodophor for sanitizing fresh water lines?

immanence

Has anyone here tried sanitizing their tab using iodophor? Homebrewers commonly use this for carboys and bottles. Generally you mix up 6 gallons or so at a time for home brewing and this would be pretty easy to pump in and run through your tab tanks.

pak

Sounds like it would work.

ColoradoJon

Sure you can.  Others have asked about StarSan as well.  I use StarSan for my brewing and bleach for the camper tanks and lines.  It's less cost.  1/4 cup bleach in my 11 gallon fresh water tank, pump through all faucets. Let sit four or so hours (or overnight), then drain.  Rinse once or twice if necessary.

immanence

Thanks all. Good point about cost ColoradoJon - seems like it would only be worth it if I had the sanitizer available from a brewing session.

CharlieRN

I'm a homebrewer and used Iodophor to sanitize my equipment for years. It's a very effective sanitizer but will stain plastic. It nominally does not require rinse, but has the potential to be detectable by taste, depending on the strength of the solution and the sensitivity of your taste buds. I would not recommend it for use in the T@B's tanks and do not use it in my 320.

Quite a few years ago, I switched to Star San for many/most brewing sanitizing applications. It's a great product and properly diluted, it really is a no-rinse sanitizer. It's main drawbacks are high cost and a relatively short shelf life once mixed into solution.

I'm with @ColoradoJon in suggesting bleach as the sanitizer of choice for this application. It is inexpensive and a weak solution is effective if given enough time. You do need to make sure of the hypochlorate concentration, so check the label (5.25% is recommended, concentrated bleach products have higher percentages). The referenced amount of 1/4 cup in 11 gallons is roughly 73 ppm (assuming 5.25% bleach), which is right at the middle of the "shock" range of 50-100 ppm and as @ColoradoJon notes, you will need to rinse. You can probably use the same 1/4 cup in the T@B 20 gallon tank (about 40 ppm, just below the recommended range) if you let it sit overnight, but you will still want to rinse.

If cost is not important, you can buy an 8 oz container of StarSan (enough for a 20 gallon tank) for about $20. In theory, you can simply drain and immediately refill the tank with water and be on our way. I think I'd still flush the lines at least to the sink however if you use the stored water for drinking or cooking.

RMo

I was looking for info on sanitizing my fresh water tank and came across this thread that recommends using 1 gallon of bleach per 10 gallons of water: https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/comment/32130#Comment_32130.  That’s a whole lot more than recommended in this thread.  I did the 10% approach and I’m still trying to get the chlorine taste out of the water so I’d be interested in any definitive answers or at least a good discussion on this topic.

ColoradoJon

@RMo - Well, one gallon of bleach sounds like a lot of bleach!  I'm no expert on this.  1/4 cup regular bleach to 11 gallons of water seems to work well.  It does leave a bleachy flavor so I typically rinse at least once, if not twice.

I believe there was some discussion of using pre-diluted 'cleaning bleach', which might be the reference for the ratio listed in that thread.  @CharlieRN seems knowledgeable on the subject, maybe he can chime in

Denny16

I agree Jon, 1-gallon of beach in the water tank is way too much.  I mix 1/4 cup of bleach in a 1-qt. container to pour into a tank with 10 gallons of water already in it, followed by an additional 5-gallons of water to get water tank 3/4 full.  This seems to work well, and is 1/4 bleach to 15 galleons of water.  I let it sit overnight, drain and flush next day, and the water tank is ready to use.
Cheers

JamesC

One potential problem with using iodophor is that it contains iodine and could cause an allergic reaction in someone sensitive to shellfish. Stick with bleach. It’s safe and effective. 

RMo

Ooops

CharlieRN

RMo said:

I was looking for info on sanitizing my fresh water tank and came across this thread that recommends using 1 gallon of bleach per 10 gallons of water: https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/comment/32130#Comment_32130.  That’s a whole lot more than recommended in this thread.  I did the 10% approach and I’m still trying to get the chlorine taste out of the water so I’d be interested in any definitive answers or at least a good discussion on this topic.

Edit: I did some more checking and found that the CDC suggests 150 ppm as being a "no rinse" sanitizer. I'm skeptical of that (not that it doesn't sanitize, that it is "no rinse" at that concentration.) Other reliable sources say that 50 - 100 ppm is the right range; in my experience the lower end of that range is more than adequate, but still requires rinsing. I've never had a batch of beer go bad at levels approaching half of that, but you're warned that YMMV, and I'll note that I still rinse.

It's worth considering that a gallon of 5.25% bleach (laundry bleach) in 1,000 gallons of water is about 50 ppm. That means a gallon of bleach in 10 gallons of water is 100 times greater than that. Far too much.There are two factors at play in sanitizing with chlorine: the strength of the solution and time. Temperature also plays a role but we can ignore that for the most part. The point is that you can achieve adequate sanitization with a weak chlorine solution if you give it enough time.

For the future, using a ratio of 1/4 Tbs (about 1/4 oz) of bleach to one gallon of water will give about 50 ppm. Scaling that up to 20 gallons, the size of the water tank in my 320, means using about 5-1/4 oz of bleach (roughly 2/3 cup). You'll still need to rinse a time or two, but nothing like what using a gallon or two of bleach requires.

As far as getting rid of the smell and taste, your best alternative is probably to continue to rinse things; I'd suggest filling the tank up, running the pump to get fresh water in the lines, and letting things sit for a few hours before draining and repeating. Sodium metabisulfite (a food preservative, commonly sold as Campden tablets) is used to de-chlorinate water. I'm familiar with it only in that I use very small amounts when brewing as my local water has a pretty high chlorine residual. Not sure how it would be used in your situation, but wanted to throw it out there as a possible alternative.

RMo

Thank you @CharlieRN!