robwalk Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 I'm still quite new to home brewing - just bottled my 19th brew - sticking with extracts and extract kits with mods at this stage. This is my first post, but have been a keen reader and learnt heaps before I started brewing and since. A huge thanks. When I re-use glass bottles, some have a haze inside. I can see a clear part above the beer line. If I leave a loose cap on, the bottle has a smell when I take it off or swing it open for swing tops. I've re-used some bottles a few times without problems and I only noticed this haze about a month ago - it is hard to notice in general light, but easily seen when back-lit by an LED. Simple rinsing with hot water doesn't clean it. After some searching, I tried iso-propyl alcohol with some success. I am soaking a batch with sodium percarbonate and will check in 24 hours. Iso-propyl alcohol is a bit expensive. Sodium percarbonate is cheaper, but slower. Any other ideas for cleaning off the haze. AND more importantly how can I prevent it or remove it right after drinking. Additional info: I pour my beer into a glass and immediately rinse the bottle in three separate rinses The haze becomes heavier the longer the beer is stored. Hope you can make it clear for me. OOoopps, I forgot about that bulk-priming topic I started a few months back - must have been seniors moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnBoy Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Howdy, Im sure someone here will know exactly what the residue left inside bottles is, but i think from what ive read in the past is that it is proteins left behind in the beer, especially if you use hops and grain additions... anyway... i get the same stuff inside my bottles, with the ring around the neck etc etc... my solution is that I sit outside with a big tub (like the bunning 41ltr storage crate) and put a mixture of unscented bleach and water and soak them for 5mins before giving them a quick scrub with a bottle brush, i then let them drip dry on my bottle tree... they come out sparkling clean... they do need to be rinsed again in water before bottling, but im fine with that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 I think it's mainly remnants of yeast and other compounds from the beer. If the bottles are only rinsed with water after each use and not properly cleaned, it builds up over time and the bottles begin to look cloudy inside. A soak in sodium percarbonate followed by a clean out with a bottle brush should get rid of it pretty easily. If you want to avoid having to do that in the future then soaking them in perc after every use is an easy way to prevent the crap building up in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaydub Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Cloudiness in bottles can be a result of many different factors. I had 12 old Coopers long necks given to me and all seemed to have a similar cloudiness to the bottles. I have no idea how old they were or what were in them prior to me getting them but I managed to get them sparkling without too much hard work. These are the steps I followed Soak for 24 hours in Sodium Percarbonate Wash on highest setting of Dishwasher with a bottle detergent Soak for 24 hours in Vinegar/Water (50/50) 3/4 fill each bottle with warm water and add 1 teaspoon of Baking Soda Rinse and soak for 4 hours with Hydrogen Peroxide Put in oven for 20 mins at 120 degrees Rinse thoroughly and store or Sanitise if using straight away Now my method may be over the top for you considering you know the history of your bottles. Mine were not just cloudy but also had some pretty stubborn sediment stuck in them as well as a pretty ordinary odour coming from them. I was willing to throw them out if my method didn’t work but they are probably the cleanest bottles I have now. EDIT: I scrubbed with a bottle brush after each soaking too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
headmaster Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 Happens to me after a few batches, primarily with big hoppy beers with lots of dry hops. When I see it, I just soak them in aldi dysan (or sodium percarbonate) in a 50L esky for a couple of days, no scrubbing required, just rinse, shake the rinse water around a bit, rinse again and use. I'd say it's hop oils that are depositing on the glass from my experience. Have run bottles with beers like kolsch or pils, other lagers, and this is never a problem, just the pale ales and IPA's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robwalk Posted January 30, 2017 Author Share Posted January 30, 2017 Hey guys, all of your posts make sense. And yes, I am mostly brewing ales and IPAs. So I'm using Sodium Percarbonate on a batch now and will get the bottle-brush onto them tomorrow. I'll try a batch in bleach and compare the results achieved and work required. If needed, I'll try multi-steps and/or some of your other suggestions. When you soak bottles after every use, Otto, do you just drop a little powder in the bottle and fill with water then let it soak? Thanks for all the suggestions so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 When you soak bottles after every use' date=' Otto, do you just drop a little powder in the bottle and fill with water then let it soak? .[/quote']Pretty much yeah. I wait until I have enough empties to fill one of the laundry tubs (around 30-35 stubbies), fill them nearly to the top with hot water, sit them upright in the tub (which is plugged), then simply fill the tub up with lukewarm water until the bottles are almost fully under. Perc goes in each one at this point, and a little splashed around the outsides as well, and then the tub is filled further to fully submerge the bottles. They soak like this and the next day they just get rinsed with hot water a couple of times and left to dry, then stored. I keg my beers now and only bottle about 12-14 stubbies every third batch, so the bottle washing process probably only happens about twice a year nowadays. Cheers Kelsey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robwalk Posted January 30, 2017 Author Share Posted January 30, 2017 "fill one of the laundry tubs (around 30-35 stubbies), fill them nearly to the top with hot water, sit them upright in the tub (which is plugged), then simply fill the tub up with lukewarm water until the bottles are almost fully under. Perc goes in each one at this point, and a little splashed around the outsides as well, and then the tub is filled further to fully submerge the bottles. They soak like this and the next day they just get rinsed with hot water a couple of times and left to dry, then stored." Cheers Otto. Looks like a plan I can use. Hey, I just noticed the quote button. Perhaps I should try that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robwalk Posted January 31, 2017 Author Share Posted January 31, 2017 Hey Otto, Sodium Percarbonate worked a treat. I wont bother with bleach or other stuff. I may try Sodium Carbonate (Washing Soda) sometime simply because I can make up a few litres and just fill bottles after drinking. It will not lose effectiveness in storage as Sodium Percarbonate does, but it will not have the free oxygen action either. Thanks again for the tip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 No worries mate, glad to hear it worked well I'm not very sparing with my use of percarbonate when I clean things so it doesn't really get much of a chance to decrease in effectiveness due to storage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChristinaS1 Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 No worries mate' date=' glad to hear it worked well [img']happy[/img] I'm not very sparing with my use of percarbonate when I clean things so it doesn't really get much of a chance to decrease in effectiveness due to storage Hi Kelsey, I think robwalk its talking about loss of effectiveness after mixing. I am no chemist but I believe sodium percarbonate and other such cleaners loose their effectiveness when all of the hydrogen is used up. I am not sure of the exact time frame, but I believe it is something like 24-48 hours. An overnight soak is usually long enough. I hate deep cleaning bottles. I triple rinse bottles after use. After three cycles (I don't use a lot of hops, YMMV) I clean them with a generic sodium percarbonate type cleaner. Rather than cleaning a whole batch of bottles at once, I do them as I go. What I mean is that after I rinse a bottle out, I fill is back up with hot tap water, add a few grains of cleaner, and leave it soak overnight on the window sill. The next morning I scrub it with a bottle brush and rinse again. I probably end up using more sodium percarbonate this way, but I prefer it. Hey robwalk, I am surprised to hear that sodium carbonate (washing soda) is not an oxidative cleaner. How does it clean? Cheers, Christina. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted January 31, 2017 Share Posted January 31, 2017 I'll wait for robwalk to clarify on that point, but whenever I've bought sodium percarbonate it does have an expiry date printed on the bag. I bought a 25kg bag of it some time ago and it definitely was stored in its bucket for a period of time after the expiry date and it didn't seem to lose its effectiveness. Maybe it was used up in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robwalk Posted February 3, 2017 Author Share Posted February 3, 2017 Hey Christina, Sodium Carbonate dissolves in water forming Sodium Hydroxide a strong alkali. This is particularly good dissolving oils. Sodium Hydroxide and fat the most common way to make soap. So Sodium Carbonate dissolves oils and probably produces a soap like action as well (not sure on this part though). Sodium Percarbonate releases free Oxygen via the form of Hydrogen Peroxide when it dissolves in water and this will react with many organic materials. It also is alkaline. Sodium Percarbonate is a funny compound of Sodium Carbonate and Hydrogen Peroxide or something like that. So some of its cleaning power is the same as Sodium Carbonate with a Hydrogen Peroxide (free Oxygen) kick. I've had Sodium Percarbonate solution still clean bottles three days after mixing - bubbles still forming but not many. May be mostly the effect of Sodium Carbonate component. By the way, Otto, Percarbonate absorbs moisture from the air and so will start releasing Hydrogen Peroxide leading to free Oxygen. Tat is why it has a useby day. Store it in a airtight container or preferably a number of smaller containers depending on how quickly you use it. As an additional point, I tried just Sodium Carbonate and it worked well but not as effective as Percarbonate. Been away from my computer for a couple of days. Apologies for the delay replying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted February 3, 2017 Share Posted February 3, 2017 Yeah, I always find that after the percarbonate has dissolved that the water has a soapy feel to it which would be the sodium carbonate. While it's totally harmless, I do rinse it off since I don't really want this in my beer. There was a thread on another forum recently where a guy was having issues with beers going stale quicker than they should in the kegs. Turned out the culprit was not rinsing the kegs after they'd been cleaned with percarbonate, so the oxygen left behind caused staling problems in the beer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robwalk Posted February 3, 2017 Author Share Posted February 3, 2017 There was a thread on another forum recently where a guy was having issues with beers going stale quicker than they should in the kegs. Turned out the culprit was not rinsing the kegs after they'd been cleaned with percarbonate' date=' so the oxygen left behind caused staling problems in the beer.[/quote'] Interesting about stale beer. Seems as though it doesn't take much oxygen if the Percarbonate was the culprit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Otto Von Blotto Posted February 3, 2017 Share Posted February 3, 2017 Yeah, it doesn't take much oxygen to ruin a beer after fermentation. That's why it's always advised to avoid splashing it etc. I think that these kegs in question were kept chilled the whole time too, so the yeast couldn't scavenge any of this excess oxygen, and so it did its business on the beers. My kegs all warm up again after filling them for a period of time before they're tapped, so any oxygen that is in there is likely mopped up by the yeast. I've certainly not had any stale beers in kegs in any case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worthog Posted May 10, 2018 Share Posted May 10, 2018 My PET bottles have been reused around 10 times now. The cleaning regime has always been Sodium Carbonate wash, rinse, then next day Phosphoric Acid (StellaSan) cold water sanitation usually the day before bottling so they dry out a bit. Never had an 'off' beer. Recently I introduced a bottle brush to the Sodium Carbonate wash to remove the internal haze beginning to build up. My pet bottles would each have only had this process one time due to the beer rotation. I noticed the brush left bristle streaks inside the PETs and did not totally remove the light haze. I'm a bit too lazy to adopt Christina's rag on the chopstick approach for all my bottles. As has been suggested on here, I subjected a batch of bottles to the Sodium Percarbonate in hot water overnight soak. Guess what? I still have that light internal haze around the main part of the bottle, not the neck, and not in the bottom as much as I can tell. Any ideas? I think the bottles are still "clean" so am continuing to use them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted May 10, 2018 Share Posted May 10, 2018 When Sodium Percarbonate doesn't get the job done, try a capful of bleach then top up with cold water - leave overnight. Make sure to give a really good rinse to remove all bleach aroma. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Worthog Posted May 10, 2018 Share Posted May 10, 2018 20 hours ago, PB2 said: When Sodium Percarbonate doesn't get the job done, try a capful of bleach then top up with cold water - leave overnight. Make sure to give a really good rinse to remove all bleach aroma. Absolutely brilliant, PB2 . PET's restored to as-new clarity inside. Now I'll do the rest. Thanks. Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jackgym Posted May 12, 2018 Share Posted May 12, 2018 It's a pain in the arse washing bottles en masse so now I drop a speck of dishwashing liquid in the bottle after drinking and leave overnight. Rinse well the next day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackSands Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 On 5/10/2018 at 3:01 PM, PB2 said: When Sodium Percarbonate doesn't get the job done... In my experience it never get's the job when it comes to dealing to the residue build-up inside bottles. I've tried overnight soaking with it and TSP and found neither had any impact. Bleach would do it for sure, though I know many would throw their arms up in horror at the idea of using it. Not sure why though, it doesn't take much to rinse it down to negligible levels. A brush also works well but I have to admit that's a very laborious method! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phoenix76 Posted May 13, 2018 Share Posted May 13, 2018 Like Worthog I use PET bottles. Lost count of the number of times I have used them. Have about 120, so they get rotated fairly well. Cleaning anything is a pain in the butt, but it has to be done. Normally I just cold rinse and agitate as I empty them. This seems to fit the bill okay. But like everyone else's, they start to cloud up after a while. Haven't noticed any effect on my beer though. But when I notice that a few are getting this way, I commandeer the bath and soak about 60 overnight in Aldi's Napisan stuff, the purple one. So 12 - 24 hrs in the percarbonate, and they come out sparkling. I have never used bleach. And I never use hot, or even warm, water on my PET bottles. Has a tendency to weaken them, and being a stingy old sod, I don't like buying new ones if I can help. One thing that I do though is regularly inspect my bottles, generally after I have rinsed, and then before I bottle. Not the usual haze I'm looking for, but any other extraneous matter that can sometimes find it way into your bottles. Had the very occasional gusher, more so in very hot weather, but I've never had to tip a beer. Cheers Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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