The Truth About DIVERSOL

One of the best Sanitizers on the market is also one of the most misrepresented.

I say misrepresented, not misunderstood because this is an extra ordinary situation. Through no fault of their own, Homebrewers are unknowingly putting their brews in jeopardy, and I intend to put a stop to this.

It's not at all like the problem with Iodophor. Iodophor is a great sanitizer, however Homebrewers often over use it. This is based on the fallacy that if a little is good, then a lot more should be great. The truth is that sanitizers are designed to work at certain concentrations, and using more will just saturate the solution, possibly to the point of self sabotage. This can be seen with the naked eye in the case of Oxy-San. If to much is used, then not all of the crystal powder will be able to dissolve into the solution, and you will find yourself compelled to give that bottle, or carboy a rinse in order to protect your beer. What was a non-rinse sanitizer is now effectively a rinse sanitizer, and this only amounts to waste for the Homebrewer.

Overuse of sanitizers is understandable. Many Homebrewers prefer overkill to underkill, especially if we are unsure of our measurements. If we have to rinse a carboy three times to be sure, and a fourth time for luck... so be it. NO ONE wants to dump five gallons of contaminated beer in the toilet.

On the other hand, if we are able to measure accurately, we should have no fear of using a sanitizer AS INSTRUCTED. If we follow the instructions on the package, we can be sure of success. In fact the instructions given are often conservative to the point of already overstating the contact times necessary, as government regulations on labeling have set minimums which any given sanitizer might actually outperform, but can not be legally advertised as doing so.

So there we have it. Follow the instructions, and all will be well...

But, what if the instructions were wrong?

What if the instructions told you to use the sanitizer exactly opposite to the way it was designed to be used?

I know what you might be thinking. How could something as important to human health and industry as a sanitizer, come with the wrong instructions? I assure you, that none of the usual suspects are at fault. It's not because of some undiscovered accident at a manufacturing plant. It's not because of some ludicrous fuckup by some lofty governmental bureaucrats. It's not some conspiratorial corner cutting by evil baby eating capitalists to poison their own customers.

I assure you It's something MUCH WORSE, but we need to explore this in detail to really understand it.

Firstly, the sanitizer in question is DIVERSOL BX/A. You may know it by it's whole sale name "Sani-Brew". I have unconfirmed reports of it being whole sold under different names, but after reading this article you will probably be able to recognize it under any name.

Diversol was developed by the Diversy Corporation, either before, or during the time that it was owned by Molson (later Molson Coors Brewing Company, AKA MillerCoors in the US... that's right, when competition fails, MERGE). Diversy has since changed hands, but the sanitizer is still mass produced, and that's no surprise considering it's excellent utility.

What exactly is Diversol?

BX/A is a powdered mixture of two halogen salts; Sodium Hypochlorite, and Potassium Bromide. "Non active ingredients" are comprised of sodium and potassium salts. This "pink powder" when dissolved in water can act both as a cleaner, a rinse contact sanitizer, and a non rinse soak sanitizer, depending on the concentrations, temperature, contact times, and surface area to concentration ratio. It's used widely in the brewing, food preparation, and dairy industries, and even used in hospitals.

For the home brewer it can be used in two ways. With long exposures at low concentration it can clean. At high concentration it can contact sanitize. In both of these cases it's a rinse sanitizer, as the surface area to concentration ratio of a plastic bucket or glass carboy is far to low to trust that the sanitizer will become acceptably inert/diluted by the time you are ready to expose that equipment to your beer. No problem. Homebrewers are accustomed to rinsing things. The great thing about Diversol is that if you use it (properly) as a contact sanitizer, at the end of the brew day, you can leave your equipment immersed in the same solution, and it will clean over night.

In short, it's versatile. It rinses as easily as Iodophor, and yet has real CIP (clean in place) capability. It fills the gap between the feather weight sanitizers like Metabisulfite, and the industrial CIP monsters such as Potassium Hydroxide.

So, what is the problem?

Well, big industry, and hospitals don't have a problem. They follow the manufacturer's instructions. Homebrewers on the other hand are being instructed otherwise. They are being mislead.

The following "instructions" are screen captures taken directly from whole-sale/re-sale Homebrewing/Vintnering web sites I have changed the names to protect the ignorant.

Take a look, and note how I have highlighted the important figures in PINK. First up is a little blurb from a Homebrewing re-seller. Let's call them B.O. Brewing.

Here is another list of instructions from a firm I choose to call Dick A Brew.

What does The Crack House have to say about this?

What about Home Brew Hell?

Finally, the star attraction, M.J. Spamballs.

Have you noticed a pattern? All of these sites have more or less the same wording, as if copied almost word for word from the same source. Who is that original source? Well M.J. Spamballs sells BX/A repackaged as "Sani-brew" with these exact instructions on the label. I'll Leave that anecdote for you to ponder. It's not proof, but at this stage it hardly maters. No matter who started it, all the other parties have just plagiarized, or passed on the same wrong information without checking their facts.

How is their information wrong? First, let's review the general claims, as stated in these various examples given above.

• 1- Dissolve in cold water.
• 2- Soak for at least 20 minutes.
• 3- Repeat the procedure.
• 4- Rinse with hot water.
• 5- Can corrode stainless steel.
• 6- Can bleach clothing.
• 7- Soak stained equipment for 48 hours.

Instructions these are... EXCEPT, these are not the instructions for Diversol BX/A. These are the Instructions for BLEACH. They aren't even the right instructions for bleach though. They are just the popular half assed instructions. Actually, a little bit worse, in fact, as unless you want a cloud of acid in your face, you should rinse bleach with COLD water. (dumb fucks)

...Anyway, what happened here? I can only surmise that someone read "Sodium Hypochlorite" on the manufacturers list of ingredients for BX/A, and equivocated the entire product with bleach. Sodium Hypochlorite, by itself, is NOT "bleach" though.

Actual Bleach as we commonly know it, is a liquid solution of sodium hypochlorite, and one or another oxygenator such as hydrogen peroxide.

The reason for Diversol's misrepresentation has it's roots in the way that bleach is misrepresented, but by an order of magnitude greater. Bleach is misrepresented, because those who publish information on bleach as a sanitizer are either concerned about people accidently harming themselves, or at least passing this cautionary censorship on unknowingly. Bleach is actually an excellent contact sanitizer if used properly. Now I fully admit that I give the half assed instructions for bleach on this very web site, within my Dirt Simple Ginger Ale article. The difference is that I don't tell people to burn there nose hairs out by rinsing with hot water, and I make light of the contact time, and they DON'T need to rinse and repeat. That's completely pointless.

The reason for the propagation of these semi effective, or sometimes ludicrous instructions for bleach is the dilemma of giving TO MUCH information to a new comer. Homebrewers are generally very clever people. They have enough intellectual curiosity to overcome the mysterious, and learn new things. Unfortunately when they first start out, they have enough trouble just remembering when and how to pitch the yeast. They don't need information about how to correct pH. Especially if it's potentially dangerous information should they get it wrong.

Using bleach right out of the bottle, uncorrected, will probably work fine if you give it a little extra time. How well it works is a crapshoot. Fresh out of the bottle, uncorrected, bleach is not reliably a contact sanitizer. How well it sanitizes and how fast, depends on the viability of the bleach, the water pH, and the relative cleanliness of the equipment being sanitized.

That's the reason for long contact times. After half an hour, if the bleach hasn't actually done the job, who knows if it ever could have? How dirty was that carboy? The potentially dangerous information about how to turn bleach into an actual contact sanitizer has been withheld, and understandably so. That's quite a different sort of misinformation to transposing the wrong instructions for one sanitizer onto a totally different substance, through pure negligence.

Now, for a proper explanation (and divestment of responsibility) of how to use bleach as a contact sanitizer, I must refer you to the March 29th, 2007 edition of Basic Brewing Radio. James Spencer, the host of Basic Brewing, interviews Charlie Talley of Five Star Chemicals. Charlie Talley is the guy who invented Star-San, (which is recently, and regrettably no longer distributed in my part of the globe) but he also knows a shit load about bleach. Check it out.

In the mean time, back to Diversol. I've stated quite confidently that it's not bleach. And the instructions listed for it on the internet are just dead wrong. Perhaps you're wondering where I get off making such a bold claim? Who am I to presume to challenge DickaBrew, and M.J. Spamballs?

Well... I'm a guy who read the manufacturer's fucken instructions. Here they are:

The above image is a direct scan of a section cut from a bulk bag of Diversol BX/A directly shipped FROM THE MANUFACTURER. NO middle man. NO re-branding. NO bullshit.

Let's break the section most relevant to Homebrewers down into small chunks.

49° Celsius to 57° Celsius is NOT cold water. It's HOT. As a cleaner, Diversol is meant to be used HOT, and every Hombrewer should use it HOT if they want to be thorough. But weather it is or is not hot, it will still sanitize.

No specification of water temperature there.

There we have it.

The only time they ever mention water temperature is to specify rinsing the equipment with cold water BEFORE any cleaner or sanitizer is used, and to mix Diversol in HOT water when using it as a cleaner. If you used Diversol the way the Internet whole sellers/re-sellers instruct you to, you would at the very LEAST waste your time, and at the very WORST fuck up your brew. I.E., using it cold with equipment that was invisibly dirty with sugars or oils.

It's bad enough that most of these companies have either plagiarized, or simply passed on these wrong instructions, but for this cambrian explosion of error to have occurred one of them had to apply the wrong instructions for bleach to a totally different sanitizer, thereby compounding the wrongness. In other words, the situation was already wrong before they wrongfully re-wronged it.

So, I've refuted the Internet. Good for me! Shall I pat myself on the back for reading some instructions? NO, let's take it one step farther. Let's INVESTIGATE a couple of those alternative claims which contradict the manufacturer's claims.

Lets do a little half assed science...

Firstly, will Diversol corrode stainless steel?

One little wad of stainless steel scrubbing ribbon was soaked in diversol for about an hour, then rinsed thoroughly. The other wad was soaked in the same solution and then left to dry WITHOUT a rinse.

Days later, and I observe NO corrosion what so ever. That's fine, but did we really need to do an experiment to confirm this? We could just use logic. The dairy industry uses Diversol to clean, and sanitize its tanks. What are dairy tanks made from? Stainless steel! Anecdotally, I have a stainless steel bracelet on my right wrist. Many times, I've had my arm immersed in Diversol up to my elbow, and so far no corrosion.

NOTE: While Diversol is stainless safe, it is NOT STORAGE SAFE, if you don't rinse. Over time, stainless that has been treated with Diversol, but not rinsed properly, may pit around oxygen contact points.

What about soft metals, though? Maybe Diversol could corrode a copper wort chiller for example. Let's take a look...

Guess which of these pennies got the rinse? It appears that Diversol will corrode soft metal even after a rinse, but the difference in corrosion between rinsing and not rinsing is staggering.

How about the claim that Diversol "may" bleach clothing?...

There's a black sock that I sacrificed in the name of science. There is some faint bleaching evident, but nothing like what you would expect from actual bleach.

To sum up...

The wrong instructions for Diversol that are being spread around on the internet are sometimes half, or just barely true, but only by accident. Wort chillers can be cleaned with a little elbow grease and a hot water soak, and sanitized by immersion in your kettle during the boil! More over, no one is going to be putting pennies or socks in there fermenters... Not unless they read about it on the Internet, anyway.

It's one thing to be wrong because you failed at trying to be right. It's another to be wrong because you were just too fucken lazy to think critically.

Having said that, I encourage you to take THIS article with a spoon of salt as well, and do your own fact checking -- on any subject. It would be in your next brew's best interests to do so. It makes sense that it would be in a whole seller's best interests to do a little fact checking themselves from time to time, but as we have seen, this can not be depended upon.