is there an easy way to clean bottles

[colliefish]

I rinse all bottles as soon as I've poured. Prior to bottling I rince with starsan using bottle rincer and drain using a big flat piece of wood with 40 holes in it.
Regarding sourcing bottles. My local saves them for me. I find copperburg best. The labels just fall off when soaked.

 

[Brewski]

Brewski, for draining, I just leant the bottles upside down in the crate I was intending to store them in. There was one calamitous moment when they went over like a domino chain but otherwise it worked ok. There was some starsan liquid in the crate but it dried off ok. Also by the time I had done all 45 all the foam had come out, though from people's experience on here the foam doesn't seem to matter.

The sanitised crate lid worked as a useful tray to put all the sanitised bits and bobs too

Good plan Gareth, unfortunately my bottle storage boxes are cardboard. I'll have to find something more suitable for bottling day.

I've just finished cleaning & de-labelling a batch of 15 (one third) of my bottles. After 5 hours submerged in a tub of hot water & Oxi laundry stain remover, all the labels and glue easily wiped off all the bottles - even the really stubborn ones. The trickiest part was making sure I rinsed them well enough afterwards - they were each filled with clean hot water, shaken and emptied 6 times, followed by a final cold water rinse. Hopefully that's done the trick.

Only 30 more bottles to go... :-|

 

[Fil]

Brewski you needed be quite so vigilant rinsing out the basic unscented laundry oxi, it decomposes into harmless elements and compounds afaik

its any bleach or chlorine based sanitisers you want to rinse well after using 3 x is generally sufficient in my limited experience but if your happier 6 x go for it :whistle:

 

[MyQul]

Good plan Gareth, unfortunately my bottle storage boxes are cardboard. I'll have to find something more suitable for bottling day.

Before I got a 'Fastrack' I used to do exactly what Gareth is suggesting using the cardboard box my cooper fermenter came in, with a couple of linings of news paper on the bottom to soak up any water that drained out the bottles. Worked a treat.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

I do mine at the sink and its a right of faff!

 

[BruinTuns]

I do mine at the sink and its a right of faff!

You can say that again :-|

This has already been suggested but to add my tuppence I also triple rinse as soon as I've poured out the beer then invert the bottle for a bit to drain.
Come bottling day I give each a quick squirt of Star San direct from a bottle spray (nozzle inserted into bottle neck) then invert and drain for 10 minutes. If I'm impatient I sometimes just shake the Star San out.
Still a faff but a vast improvement on washing and triple rinsing on the day. Thank you Star San and thank you MyQul for convincing me of its benefits :hat:

 

[mirsultankhan]

Has anyone tried a hand held steam cleaner? I wonder if that would sanitise the bottles?

 

[MyQul]

Still a faff but a vast improvement on washing and triple rinsing on the day. Thank you Star San and thank you MyQul for convincing me of its benefits :hat:

Took delivery of a bottle rinser today (thanks clibit, got the yellow one from the place you recomended). Hopefully it will help cut bottling day down as I can just give each bottle a couple of pumps on it when sterilizing instead of having to line all the bottles up put a bit of star san in each then cap and shake before draining

 

[Grumpydev]

Does the recommendation mean there's a cheap one somewhere?

 

[DoctorMick]

Does the recommendation mean there's a cheap one somewhere?

PAid about 35 quid for mine from BrewUK which, considering the time saving, is a bargain. That was the cheapest I could find at the time but it was a few months ago.

 

[CreweBrewer]

I rinse my bottles straight after use and just put them on the shelf. When it comes to bottling day I fill one of those builders tubs (Gorilla tubs?) with warm water, chuck a few Milton tablets in and submerse as many bottles as I can into it. When it comes to rinsing them I just stand them all up and blast inside each one with the hose. Works for me.

Dave

 

[MyQul]

Does the recommendation mean there's a cheap one somewhere?

Worked out to be about £10 with P&P everywhere else I looked was £15

http://www.brewsmarter.co.uk/craft-...ers-and-fits-coopers-oxbar-bottles-1817-p.asp

 

[Grumpydev]

Worked out to be about £10 with P&P everywhere else I looked was £15

http://www.brewsmarter.co.uk/craft-...ers-and-fits-coopers-oxbar-bottles-1817-p.asp

Have you used them before? Their site looks well dodgy

 

[DoctorMick]

Have you used them before? Their site looks well dodgy

I have, no complaints from me and I'd use them again. In fact, if i'd seen that rinser I'd have bought from there as it was cheaper than the one I bought! :evil: Their site is rubbish though, can't argue with that.

 

[Grumpydev]

Fair enough, cheers - I have a prepay card I use for sites like that anyway - the dodgy design/overlapping elements and out of date dates made me worried :)

 

[MyQul]

Have you used them before? Their site looks well dodgy

Got the rinser yesterday after about a week. No problems.

Would definately use them again, especially as the courier they used had a GPS thingy so I could see exactly the time when they would deliver

 

[LarryF]

Can I just check something here, when my twins were young we used to sterilize their bottles in a bottle sterilizer that went into the microwave after washing them. As they were twins were doing 14 bottles a day so a thirty bottle run you'll do in 30-40 mins. Just wondering if this is viable for beer, the kids certainly never had a problem when we did their bottles this way even when they were very young.

 

[MyQul]

I don't see why not as there are forum members who sanitise there bottles with just boiling water and no sanitising solution

 

[Grumpydev]

I think it depends on how long you intend to leave it - Miltons tablets sterilize things to the point that they're baby safe for immediate use, or at least within a short period. When you're storing things longer, and in conditions where nasties love to thrive (just like yeast does) then you need a more "thorough" sanitising. I use Miltons on my ragtop car roof whenever there's green stuff on it (which is unavoidable) - does a good job, but doesn't last more than a few months before it's visible again.

That said, the chances of infection are pretty low anyway, certainly in our crappy climate, so we probably go massively over the top :)

 

[LarryF]

Just had a check on the idea of using the baby bottle sterilizer in the microwave and it's a no go, the microwave is 20cm tall and the 500ml PET bottle is 22cm tall, Bugger!!!! Back to the Milton.