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Cleaning / sanatizing solutions
Anyone use iodine as a sanatizer ???
And if so what brand??
looking into ordering some...seam it will cut cost big time if it is acceptable ???
I've used Iodine only on people, it's hospital grade, but it stains...
i use Iodophor myself, i love it. i bought a quart of it for $14 bucks over a year ago and am still using it. 2 or 3 tsps in 5 gallons of water and a 15 minute soak and you are good to go.
i prefer it over bleach, because i cant stand the smell bleach. and i didn't want to be rinsing all my equipment for hours to get all bleach residue and odor washed away. i already use enough water brewing as it is, no need to double it.
i have not used the other options (StarSan, PBW, etc) as they are a little more expensive and not all stores carry all options. but iodophor is a universal, so you can always get it cheap no problem.
I love the starsan, no rinse. Iodophor is great, but stains. I keep a bottling pail filled w/ 5 gallons of starsan and keep things like my siphon, funnel, airstone caboy caps, airlocks that kinda stuff.
Next to it I have an old buspan also w/ starsan, that is where my lines soak and anything else bulky.
My routine is I fill the bottling bucket w/ fresh solution, and use the spigot to fill spray bottles for sanitizing, beer bottles, hydrometer tubes that sort. Whenever I use my siphon I clean it out then siphon a little from the bucket to the bus pan which is holding the old batch of sanitzer. I just keep recycling new batch in the bucket every couple weeks, siphon old to the bus pan.
That sounds like a good way to do things. I don't have a dedicated sanitizing bucket yet and find myself dumping a lot of solution. The main reason for this is forgetting to sanitize something the first time around then having to make more solution.
Looks like another trip to the store!! 
I use the starsan no-rinse. Doesn't add any flavor, and is convenient as all hell, since there is no triple rinse involved to get rid of some gnarly bleach smell. You should pick up a big plastic container of some sort next tiime you are at a Target or something. It is so useful to just have a big old bucket of sanitizing water that you can soak stuff in, or dump into other containers. It makes things alot easier, and you don't have to worry about marring up your real buckets. I got something that holds about four gallons of water for two bucks. Works like a charm, and if I get too drunk and fall down and break it while I am brewing, it is all good.
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