Bottle Sanitisation

[jceg316]

After reading my feedback from the London and South East Homebrew Competition there were some interesting points given for improving my beers.

One judge spoke about specific off flavour I have tasted, said when he opened the bottle the foam kept bubbling, and this could be because of poor bottle sanitisation. I think this is correct because it doesn't happen to all bottles, just some.

I thought my bottling was sanitary. Here's my process:

I use starsan for all sanitising.

• I bottle in a plastic keg, I pour sanitiser solution into that and swirl it around for a minute or two so all surfaces are covered
• I drain the sanitiser through the tap into a bottle spray (this sort of thing).
• I put bottle caps into the reservoir of the above thing to sanitise them
• I thoroughly spray the piping and syphon with sanitiser
• transfer beer to bottling bucket.
• place sanitised foil over the top
• Pour boiling water over sugar. Once it's cool I pour it in the beer and stir with a sanitised plastic spoon.
• I have a bottling wand which I spray with sanitise before using.
• sanitise my bottles by spraying them three times, I rotate them as well to make sure as much surface inside gets sanitised.
• I then fill bottles and cap.

I know it might be difficult to pinpoint where things go wrong if you're not there watching me sanitise, but is there something glaringly obvious which I'm missing?

I should add all bottles are thoroughly washed after their last use.

 

[Dads_Ale]

Couple of thoughts.
Does you bottle washing invole some sort of cleaner to ensure they are fully clean?
Is your wand a little bottler? If you need to take it fully apart to clean as the end sprung bit can harbour nasties.

 

[jceg316]

I don't use any cleaner when washing my bottles, just water until all yeast and beer is out the bottle. I have a bottle brush I use for the stubborn yeast.

My bottle wand does have a spring in it which I don't always check. Is there a bottling wand which works just as well but with less parts?

 

[Dads_Ale]

I normally put the bottles in with the washing up and ensure they are well rinsed after cleaning. For stubborn stains i use a handful of small S/S nuts and some PBW. Put on some reggae music and shake away. :)

 

[MmmBeer]

Before sanitising with star-san, I soak everything in an Oxi (sodium perchlorate) solution for 10 minutes and rinse well. For bottles, I stick them in the dishwasher with a scoop of oxi in place of a detergent tablet.

I have never thought of taking my little bottler apart to clean and sanitise, however the one I normally use has no spring and works on gravity only.

 

[LarryF]

I only use PET's and I'm coming round to thinking that the initial rinse on bottles after use is the most important. To the point where I will fill a just poured bottle with water and will wait to rinse them the morning after. I empty the bottle add 1/3 of water put the lid back on , turn the bottle upside down and shake vigoursly to dislodge any yeast, upside down just works better at dislodging yeast. Then I clean the outside of the bottle (you can't tell if the inside is clean if the outside is dirty). Then rinse the outside off, take the lid off then empty the bottle and fill with water and rinse bottle and lid. Then spray bottle and lid with sanitizer and store with the lid loose. On brew day use a bottle washer to rinse with sanitizer again, rinse and prime.
My bottling wand I always dismantle and rinse immediately I've finished bottling, as previously mentioned the are hiding place for nasties in there. More than their should to be honest. I'd like to get a metal one but I'm not 100% sure how it will work with a plastic tap.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Couple of thoughts.
Does you bottle washing invole some sort of cleaner to ensure they are fully clean?
Is your wand a little bottler? If you need to take it fully apart to clean as the end sprung bit can harbour nasties.

Agreed about the nasties in the little bottler dad's ale, but surely that would effect all the bottles?

starsan will not kill yeast, it kills bacteria fine. So I dishwash my bottles, rinse with tap water then put them in the oven and once cooled recap them and put them down the shed. the bottle caps came off the beers i've just opened and cleaner with boiling water - heat kills yeast and other stuff and then I dunked them in star san. approx 1800 beers bottled and only had 1 real gusher and that was before I followed the regime above.

 

[chthon]

I had the same problem with a couple of brews. It was rather clear because it was about beers which should not have much carbonation, a strong ale and a Christmas porter.

What I found was this. I normally use a product called P3-gamo HD, which is an alkaline product containing chlorine. You have to rinse it with a metabisulfite solution afterwards. The problem I got is that I did not package well, so it apparently lost the chlorine part. And that is what happened. There must be some lesser contaminations which lead to gushers, but otherwise keep the beer intact. Both beers still tasted nice.

So, what I now do is, I still use the same package (the alkaline part is still good), but I add some bleach to it for cleaning my bottles. I haven't had the problem any more.

 

[jceg316]

Agreed about the nasties in the little bottler dad's ale, but surely that would effect all the bottles?

starsan will not kill yeast, it kills bacteria fine. So I dishwash my bottles, rinse with tap water then put them in the oven and once cooled recap them and put them down the shed. the bottle caps came off the beers i've just opened and cleaner with boiling water - heat kills yeast and other stuff and then I dunked them in star san. approx 1800 beers bottled and only had 1 real gusher and that was before I followed the regime above.

Interesting approach and very thorough. Does heating the bottles reduce their life span at all?

 

[Drunkula]

Does heating the bottles reduce their life span at all?

You've got to put them in a cold oven then turn it on, not straight into a hot oven. No damage.

 

[dad_of_jon]

Interesting approach and very thorough. Does heating the bottles reduce their life span at all?

No, can't say I've had any issues apart from using bottles not designed to take higher carbonation levels.

 

[-Bezza-]

Interesting approach and very thorough. Does heating the bottles reduce their life span at all?

It's not so good on PET bottles.

Don't dry the bottles, just empty them out. The little bit of water that's left in gets a bit of steam going which helps, IMHO.

 

[ukphiltr7]

I only use PET's and I'm coming round to thinking that the initial rinse on bottles after use is the most important. To the point where I will fill a just poured bottle with water and will wait to rinse them the morning after. I empty the bottle add 1/3 of water put the lid back on , turn the bottle upside down and shake vigoursly to dislodge any yeast, upside down just works better at dislodging yeast. Then I clean the outside of the bottle (you can't tell if the inside is clean if the outside is dirty). Then rinse the outside off, take the lid off then empty the bottle and fill with water and rinse bottle and lid. Then spray bottle and lid with sanitizer and store with the lid loose. On brew day use a bottle washer to rinse with sanitizer again, rinse and prime.
My bottling wand I always dismantle and rinse immediately I've finished bottling, as previously mentioned the are hiding place for nasties in there. More than their should to be honest. I'd like to get a metal one but I'm not 100% sure how it will work with a plastic tap.

This is the approach that I take too. When I have finished a bottle, often before I have finished the glass, I go and rinse it out with cold water. A few good shakes to get anything off the bottom and the a fresh rinse out with clean cold water. I then leave them to drain and when dry, I store them in a clean box until needed again with the lid off. I them fully sterilise when needed. After using my wand I take it apart and give it a good clean after use. When I come to use the wand I take it apart and fully sterilise it.

 

[private4587]

I have a spring loaded bottler, how dose sit come apart. It looks as if it is made not to be dismantled?

 

[Cwrw666]

This is what I do -
After drinking a beer I rinse out the bottle well then fill with a concentrated solution of washing soda and let it stand for a few hours. This removes even quite stubborn yeast deposits. Then rinse the bottles well and stand upside down to drain.
Just before bottling I fill the bottles carefully with boiling water, reusing it several times so that 3 kettle fulls of water will do 40 bottles no problem.
Boiling water kills just about everything and in things like FVs penetrate scratches that chemicals wont.

Mind you, I still get the odd over fizzy bottle. But I don't sterilise the sugar I add so that's probably the reason.

 

[xozzx]

I rinse each bottle after using it with cold water then store away in the garage. On bottling day I use a PBW and hot water mix in an old FV and fill each bottle, shake it out, rinse with cold water, then skoosh with starsan using one of these .

 

[LarryF]

I have a spring loaded bottler, how dose sit come apart. It looks as if it is made not to be dismantled?

If you gently pull the grey plastic piece off the bottom of the bottling wand it will slide off. Maybe use a piece of cloth to get a gentle but firm grip if that makes sense. Inside you will have the spring that comes out first. Then you have the little plastic piece with the tiny rubber seal on it. The tiny plastic piece is hollow so I rinse that out as soon as I've finished bottling and then rinse the rest of it. When I'm getting ready to bottle I give the spring a a bit of a stretch to ensure a good seal on the bottom of the bottling wand as when they don't seal 100% it's a real pain bottling with the tap as well.

 

[MyQul]

Interesting approach and very thorough. Does heating the bottles reduce their life span at all?

I dont know for sure but I've been ovening my bottles for about 3 years and never had any break or have bombs (I carb my blonde ales to lager levels at 2.5 vols of C02 too)

 

[foxbat]

If you gently pull the grey plastic piece off the bottom of the bottling wand it will slide off. Maybe use a piece of cloth to get a gentle but firm grip if that makes sense. Inside you will have the spring that comes out first. Then you have the little plastic piece with the tiny rubber seal on it. The tiny plastic piece is hollow so I rinse that out as soon as I've finished bottling and then rinse the rest of it. When I'm getting ready to bottle I give the spring a a bit of a stretch to ensure a good seal on the bottom of the bottling wand as when they don't seal 100% it's a real pain bottling with the tap as well.

And take it from me that the important little pieces, including the spring, will fit just fine down the kitchen plughole if you let them.

 

[LarryF]

And take it from me that the important little pieces, including the spring, will fit just fine down the kitchen plughole if you let them.

Ain't that the truth, how they manufacture suicidal tenancies into something so small is beyond me. The annoying thing is that they made the plastic piece hollow to save 1/10th gram of plastic and it's a perfect hiding place for nasties, I'm digging trub out of it eith a toothpick when I've finished bottling.