Sterilisation of Bottles

[NickCarroll]

Hi guys, how do you guys sterilise your glass bottles? Has anyone tried a steam cleaner? I thinking of trying it on my next brew

 

[chopps]

Very hot water and a bottle brush, then into the dishwasher. Dry upside down. On botting day a 5 gallon bucket of starsan, I fill each bottle, leave for a few mins, drain back into the same bucket then fill with beer and cap off with sanitised caps.

 

[Cwrw666]

Clean bottles, leave them to drain and dry.
On bottling day cook 'em in the oven at 105c for 5 minutes or so. Let 'em cool then fill 'em up.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

The subject of using steam to sanitise comes up a fairly regularly and it seems to work but isn't used by many brewers here the heat method mentioned above by Cwrw666 is more popular, Star San or similar products are by far the most popular means of sanitising..

 

[Hanglow]

Rinse after use, store upside down, squirt with starsan on bottling day.

Any that I forget to rinse immediately I tend to let soak with some sodium percarbonate/oxi etc then rinse

 

[NormanHurst]

Sodium Percarbonate. Rinse. Dishwasher cycle with no tablet/detergent. Chemsan.

 

[joe 90]

dishwasher for me to, soak overnight in oxi then into the dishwasher at the running man setting for 15 mins leave to cool for ten minutes prime with sugar then bottle

 

[DCBC]

Not the sexiest answer but I find a really good rinse immediately after use, like before you start drinking the beer - hot water with your thumb over the end and a good shake, is enough to get all the sediment out. Then I let them drain and dry and just sanitise with StarSan on bottling day.

If I dishwash bottles it's only ever with no plates or pans in because tiny bits of food can get blasted in there and get stuck and dried on because of the heat - it often makes them dirtier than before they went in!

 

[SteveElder]

Sanitised with Starsan for me. Never had a problem.

 

[Hop_it]

I always make a point of washing my bottles immediately after emptying as mentioned by DCBC. Then just prior to bottling a fresh brew I soak them in a warm sodium percarbonate solution for ~20 min, give them a quick rinse with clean water, drain for a few minutes, and then give them a few plunges up and down on a bottle rinser (see photo) filled with Chemsan (a Starsan equivalent). The bottle rinser is a lot easier and quicker than trying to spray the stuff inside the bottle, and doesn't need a lot of solution.
It works for me

 

[Drunkula]

Keep the bottle cap after you open it and after pouring swill and snap the cap back on. Good if you store the bottles where slugs n stuff can crawl inside.

 

[Justin Dean]

vwp, then rinse in sink. leave to dry on fast rack, flush chemsan, bottle cap

 

[mdss]

I rinse a couple of times just after pouring, leave to dry upside down then store. A day or so before bottling I fill the dishwasher with bottles only plus a dishwasher tablet, once dry store in a covered box in my utility room, then on bottling day make up a starsan solution, immerse all the bottles a couple at a time, and place on my bottle tree to drain whilst transferring from my fv to my bottling bucket, fill the bottles, cap with star San soaked crown caps, and jobs a good un . 101 brews in, not had a single bad beer!

 

[Hopperty]

After use bottle and top goes into dishwasher, next morning the bottles are filled with a 500:1 mix clean water & thin bleach [1], and the top refitted.

On bottling day the top comes off, drained then well rinsed on my six at a time home made rinser.

Then fill with beer - never had a problem to date. It is a very quick fast process.


[1] (this is about double the concentration of what is in public swimming pool)

 

[Drunkula]

After use bottle and top goes into dishwasher, next morning the bottles are filled with a 500:1 mix clean water & thin bleach [1], and the top refitted.

Do you fully recap by crimping? When bleach breaks down it's suprising but stuff just loves to grow in it. I've had no end of wine bottles and demijohns with stuff floating in them after leaving bleach solutions in. One demijohn I thought had a dead beedin rat in it.

 

[johncrobinson]

At least rinse the bottles,Otherwise its a right pain to clean them.
I am guilty of not rinsing demijohns,And as a result have had to bin em.At £9.45 a time,I am kicking myself for being so slack.

 

[Binkei Huckaback]

I've seen steam cleaning mentioned on another forum and I think the argument was against as:

- You need some way to keep the bottle from moving while you blast it with steam
- They could end up breaking because of the heat
- Dry heat is better than wet heat except in certain conditions (someone may want to correct me on that).

I rise mine with cold water four times and shake the residual water put befor putting the crown cap back on. Recently I've been using a bottle brush on each on before filling and it's amazing the amount of crap that comes out of a 'clean' bottle sometimes! I'm thinking of investing in a bottle tree to store them on.

Then I add some no-rinse sanitiser, give it a shake, then when the contact time is up, put the bottle on its end in a container of sanitiser to sanitise the neck. Don't forget to sanitise you crown caps too. Apart from making sure they're sanitised, many if not most are oxygen scavenging and need to be wetted to activate them.

 

[GeorgieV]

I put glass bottles in the dishwasher after use along with the other dishes. Then on the bottling day I put them again in the dishwasher with VWP instead of the normal dishwasher agent. The crown caps get soaked in VWP solution while waiting for the dishwasher to finish.

 

[West wind]

A good wash and rinse after use and drained/dried on a bottle tree. On bottling day I use a rinser same as post #10 above half filled with none rinse sanitiser. Give them a few plunges on the rinser and hang them back on the bottling tree to drain before being refilled. I give the bottling tree a spray too and also sanitise the crown caps.

 

[DCBC]

Oh one thing to note re bottle trees - if like me you have a plastic one, make sure you rinse it after bottling with Starsan. Don't assume (like I did) that you can just leave it to air dry. If left in contact with the plastic, Starsan starts to break it down and leaves it with an oily coating