Alchemywunderkid wrote:Let's say you drop your cleaned and sanitized racking cane onto the ground. On one side of the room you have an open bucket of VERY, VERY old Star San. On the other side, you have a bucket of tap water. Into which do you swish your racking cane before you siphon your precious beer? For this question, assume that there are no other options.
What?? You are going to knock off the extra flavor from the floor?
your hypo is essentially unanswerable because: (1) you didn't state whether your sanitizer was worth using, (2) you didn't indicate anything about the floor's cleanliness, (3) you didn't say anything about the quality of the tap water bleach chloramiene filter - - etc., (3) you took the Star San out of the equation anyway {was that a trick?}, (4) {most important} you didn't say what the question was that you were looking to answer.
But if I had to assume there were no other options (such a dire circumstance) I'd lick the cane off to see is any pizza sauce from last night got on it, scratch my but with it and finish the session.
Odds are your dropping the cane would be meaningless. How filthy the floor would have to be to have something on it that (a) could survive in beer - that's a challenge what with all the acidity and what not, and (b) only a small handful of bugs can survive in beer and create off flavors.