Sterile bottles

[Mr Rob]

Hello,

I've just got my first brew going using a Young's Brew Buddy kit.

I'm going to bottle using 2 litre pop bottles, and had starting saving them up, but I've just got back from Asda where I noticed their 2 litre value sparkling water is on sale for just 10 pence - so I bought a load.

The question I have is regarding sterilisation:

I plan to pour the sparkling water away immediately before bottling - so do you think the bottles will already be sterile?

I suppose they should be if they were containing water for drinking.

The obvious answer is that I should sterilise to be on the safe side, but does anybody have any direct experience?

Thanks!

 

[Dunfie]

Hi Mr Rob, welcome to the forum.

I don't have any direct experience as I always sterilise my bottles. My gut feeling is that you would probably get away with it but it would be a travisty to lose your first batch of beer just to save a few minutes at the front end. So I'm not going to encourage bad practice - give them a clean. :thumb:

Hope it goes well.

 

[Moley]

When I've bought 5 litre bottles of mineral water for use as DJs I've just poured away half of the water, added a couple of litres of fruit juices, some sugar syrup, yeast, nutrient etc., drilled the lid for an airlock and bish bosh, job's a good'un. Never sterilised one, never lost a gallon of wine.



PS: 5L AquaPura currently 69p in Morrison's.

 

[ni9e]

I'm going to bottle using 2 litre pop bottles, and had starting saving them up, but I've just got back from Asda where I noticed their 2 litre value sparkling water is on sale for just 10 pence - so I bought a load.

I do that everytime I bottle my cider kits and have also put beer in them in an emergency bottling situation I never sterilised them just poured out the water primed and filled them up and I,ve never had a problem :thumb: one word of caution though store the bottles in the dark as with them being clear the light does something to the beer/cider can't of the top of my head remember what but someone will drop in and let you know

 

[jamesb]

I do that everytime I bottle my cider kits and have also put beer in them in an emergency bottling situation I never sterilised them just poured out the water primed and filled them up and I,ve never had a problem :thumb: one word of caution though store the bottles in the dark as with them being clear the light does something to the beer/cider can't of the top of my head remember what but someone will drop in and let you know

Without going into tales of 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, basically UV light reacts with hop compounds to create an unpleasant taste. Generally known as "skunked", it reminds me a little of cat pish. I can taste it all the time in bottled hobgoblin. Some people are more sensitive to the taste than others.

 

[Moley]

Generally known as "skunked", it reminds me a little of cat pish. I can taste it all the time in bottled hobgoblin. Some people are more sensitive to the taste than others.

Ah well, there you go, over the years I must have drunk several gallons of Hobgoblin but I've never sampled so much as one thimbleful of cat pish, so I've never made the connection.

 

[jamesb]

Generally known as "skunked", it reminds me a little of cat pish. I can taste it all the time in bottled hobgoblin. Some people are more sensitive to the taste than others.

Ah well, there you go, over the years I must have drunk several gallons of Hobgoblin but I've never sampled so much as one thimbleful of cat pish, so I've never made the connection.

I live in a house of cats, I should have got desensitised to it by now Suspect that cat pish is a different compound anyway.

Trivia: It's the same compound that an actual skunk produces.

 

[Mr Rob]

Thanks for the advice. As it's my first batch I've decided not to take any risks and sterlilise the bottles.

However, as an experiment I will leave a bottle or two unsterlilised and report back on my findings.

And thanks for the info about the UV too.