Isopropyl alcohol to clean germs on countertops My wife recently found some website recommending mixing 91% isopropyl alcohol, white vinegar, water, and corn starch and using it to wipe down countertops. This would be where we put our raw chicken and pork after washing them.

I'm concerned that this won't kill the germs as well as harsh chemicals would, although I am as eager as she is to replace those hard chemicals. I need to know, from a chemist, whether isopropyl alcohol really will kill all those E. coli and Salmonella and whatever else the raw poultry is leaving behind.

As a bonus, can anyone recommend any better solutions that we can make on our own than the one mentioned above?
A 70% “rubbing” alcohol solution will kill those pesky bacterium usually in ten seconds or less. It will also kill a host of viruses, but not all of them. 

For your common household disinfecting, a 70% solution will do the trick. Especially for e. Coli, salmonella, staph, and a few others that would be risk bacterium when preparing poultry, etc. 

A final bit of information: 70% will be a more effective carrier than the 90-99% equivalent. Why? Because the water mix (30%) will act as a carrier or transport mechanism to get the alcohol into the bacterium cells in order to terminate them! The 90% mix simply is not very effective at penetrating the cell membranes. 

See this for additional information:  https://www.cdc.gov/infectioncontrol/guidelines/disinfection/disinfection-methods/chemical.html