It is important to sanitize your brewing equipment to ensure that you are fermenting your wort with only the yeast or culture that you planned for to make the flavor you want. There are many different products to sanitize your equipment. They are detailed below in order of ease of use and popularity.
Star San is an acid based sanitizer that is quick, odorless, tasteless and safe for most materials except softer metals. It is safe, non-toxic, nor will it impart any flavors or odors and is used to sanitize something once it has been cleaned. This will make sure there is no bacteria or anything else that you cannot visually see.
Use 1 oz per 5 gallons of water and a contact time of 1 minute.
Saniclean is a low foam version of Star San. You would use it for pumps or any application where you wanted to limit foam. Used at the rate of 2 oz in 5 gallons.
Is an iodine based no-rinse sanitizer. 1 oz in 5 gallons.
It is a mixture of isopropyl alcohol, water and a residual bacterial killer, QUAT. It kills bacteria and wild yeast after a 60 second contact period. In addition to star san this is great to have around for sanitizing valving on conical fermenters or anything else that needs a quick sanitizing. No rinse. Allow to air dry.
No. It is not food grade, and can contribute a flavor into your beer or wine. Also you want to be careful when using bleach with stainless because bleach can stain and damage stainless steel. We highly recommend Star-San over bleach in all situations but bleach was recommended for years so do not be surprised when a fellow brewer has been using bleach for years and says that he has had no issues with it.