Time effective bottle cleaning system

[ChristinaS1]

On 4/30/2019 at 6:41 AM, Beers Gone Wild said:

My Method:

1. Buy Longneck Carton.
2. Rinse in cold water as I finish each one.
3. Rinse in Super Hot Water.
4. Spray inside with Sanitiser.
5. Put on Bottle Tree.

Bottling Day:

1. Pour a beer from Kegerator.
2. Rinse each Bottle from Tree in Super Hot Water.
3. Spray inside with Sanitiser.
4. Leave sit 5 mins.
5. Rinse in cold.
6. Put on Bottle Tree to drain.
7. Bottle Beer

Works for me, I haven't had an infection yet.

Is your sanitizer Starsan? If so, your process is more involved than it needs to be.

You could skip step 4 in part one, and steps 2 and 5 on bottling day. Starsan is a no rinse sanitizer. But once in a while they should still be soaked in an alkaline cleanser, and I personally feel they should also be physically scrubbed at the same time. That silicone brush of Shamus's looks good, particularly for PET bottles.

Edited May 9, 2019 by ChristinaS1

[Worthog]

On 4/29/2019 at 12:03 AM, ChristinaS1 said:

...Bleach is safe to use with glass but should not be used with PET bottles, as it will be absorbed by the plastic.....

Cheers,

Christina.

I would like to settle this point as @PB2 has previously suggested a capful of bleach and fill with cold water overnight to remove hop/malt Haze build up. 

Is bleach an option for PETs, or not?

Cheers

[ChristinaS1]

I am not clear on the dosage: is that a capful of bleach per PET bottle?

Ever smell an empty bleach bottle? You will never get that smell out, because plastic is porous. A capful of bleach in a PET bottle is a much lower concentration, so maybe the odour will be below the human ability to detect, but do you really want it in the plastic you package beer in? Does the fact that bleach is cheap make it worth it to you?

Is bleach an effective de-hazer? I guess that depends on what the haze is made of. Bleach can degrade protein, but I can't see that it would do much to remove hop oil, especially in cold water. And then of course there is all that rinsing you have to do, to get the worst of the smell out.

If you have better options, why not use them? 

Cheers,

Christina.

[BlackSands]

2 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

I am not clear on the dosage: is that a capful of bleach per PET bottle?

Ever smell an empty bleach bottle? You will never get that smell out, because plastic is porous. A capful of bleach in a PET bottle is a much lower concentration, so maybe the odour will be below the human ability to detect, but do you really want it in the plastic you package beer in? Does the fact that bleach is cheap make it worth it to you?

Is bleach an effective de-hazer? I guess that depends on what the haze is made of. Bleach can degrade protein, but I can't see that it would do much to remove hop oil, especially in cold water. And then of course there is all that rinsing you have to do, to get the worst of the smell out.

If you have better options, why not use them? 

Cheers,

Christina.

Interesting points though I personally haven't tried this "PB2" method... yet.   But I will just to satisfy my own curiosity and I'll then know of course how effective it is against hop oils, which seems to be my biggest issue with bottle cleanliness.  I don't think it would take much to rinse and subsequently dilute the chlorine down to the level of the municipal tap water that I/we are using to rinse the bottles with in the first place.   I will also, as mentioned elsewhere, be trying an immediate post-use soak in sodium perc.  It will be interesting to compare the two methods.

[Worthog]

2 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

I am not clear on the dosage: is that a capful of bleach per PET bottle?..

Cheers,

Christina.

1 × PET capful per PET and fill with cold water. Once they are drained next day and hot rinsed there is no odour discernable and the PETs are crystal clear.

They are air dried and stored prior to next bottling process which includes wash and sanitise.

I only use this periodical bleach process to clean haze buildup. I can guarantee there is no residual bleach (chlorine).

And again I will say; 2000 bottles, and predominant use of US-05 Yeast, with no bandaid/phenolic issues.

My original question is; does this process degrade the PETs?

Cheers

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

I tried a Google search and found some articles and such about chlorine degrading nylon, in this case more specifically sodium hypochlorite. The bottles do have a nylon barrier, I'm assuming it's inside them? 

At the concentration used in this little process though it probably wouldn't degrade before the bottles themselves wore out. 

[ChristinaS1]

Degraded nylon? Yum! 

The fact that PET bottles wear out is concerning to me. Where are the products of that wear going? 

This reminds me of people who use styrofoam containers in a microwave. Food tastes fine and they can get up the next day, so no problem.

No doubt PET bottles are safer than styrofoam, but I am just not a fan of packaging my beer in petroleum products.

 

 

[BlackSands]

1 hour ago, ChristinaS1 said:

The fact that PET bottles wear out is concerning to me. Where are the products of that wear going? 

There's certainly a number of scholarly articles out there that have raised concerns about chemical leaching from PET, and there's plenty others that suggest it's a non-issue!    

And then there's the environmental concerns associated with the disposal of plastics too but I guess in some small defense on behalf of beer PET's, mine for example have seen countless repeat uses and generally I'd say these particular type of PET bottles are largely restricted to the relatively small homebrew community.  In total contrast, compare that to the 100's of millions of single-use bottles used for water and other liquids that are discarded daily around the world.   

AND, there's some arguments that suggest that glass is not all it's cracked up to be either.  (pun intended!)    When all things considered, energy required to manufacture, greenhouse gases produced from manufacture, recycling costs etc etc from an environmental perspective it apparently fares quite poorly compared to PET.   But I'm sure if I look hard enough I could find something that contradicts all that too!    

 

Edited May 10, 2019 by BlackSands

[Worthog]

PET degradation has to be a "given" due to their composition. I still think they should be managed as a finite resource, ie, cycle counted, and replaced.

PETs are a great cost effective vessel for brewing introduction and learning. If you quickly decide brewing is not for you, you have not spent a fortune on equipment.

Some people evolve their processes for kegging. I choose glass bottles because I am confident my process is safe and the results are slightly superior for consistency,  and far superior in failure rate which is non existent with my capped longnecks.

Unbelievably I have not lost one longneck over the journey due to breakage, anywhere in my process.

From an environmental perspective, I am happy I no longer use plastic, but plastic is a very important starting point and ideal for new brewers.

Cheers

[ChristinaS1]

@BlackSands: that side-by-side experiment your are planning should be interesting. Thanks for undertaking it.

PETs are cost effective? I guess that depends on where you live. A box of 24 500mL (I would not want the 740mL size) Coopers PET bottles sells for $86 on Amazon.ca. A batch would require around 48 bottles. I can't imagine spending $172 plus 15% tax and $10 for shipping. Cost effective? Not! Especially not if I have to buy new ones every 10-12 cycles. 

One reason that people might shy away from glass bottles is because of fear of exploding bottles / bottle bombs. I would like to put a plug in for the safety of Grolsch bottles. They are very sturdy and are able to withstand 4.5 volumes of pressure. If they break, and I have only ever had one break, they don't shatter and send glass flying everywhere. The only thing that happens is that the bottom breaks off in a disc. The same is probably true of amber glass flip-tops LHBS sell, which are available for $24 / dozen at mine. Personally I got my used Grolsch bottles for $0.25 each at the bottle recycling shop. They can be reused for decades. They will probably outlive me. Now that is cost effective! 

Cheers,

Christina.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

1 hour ago, ChristinaS1 said:

@BlackSands: that side-by-side experiment your are planning should be interesting. Thanks for undertaking it.

PETs are cost effective? I guess that depends on where you live. A box of 24 500mL (I would not want the 740mL size) Coopers PET bottles sells for $86 on Amazon.ca. A batch would require around 48 bottles. I can't imagine spending $172 plus 15% tax and $10 for shipping. Cost effective? Not! Especially not if I have to buy new ones every 10-12 cycles. 

One reason that people might shy away from glass bottles is because of fear of exploding bottles / bottle bombs. I would like to put a plug in for the safety of Grolsch bottles. They are very sturdy and are able to withstand 4.5 volumes of pressure. If they break, and I have only ever had one break, they don't shatter and send glass flying everywhere. The only thing that happens is that the bottom breaks off in a disc. The same is probably true of amber glass flip-tops LHBS sell, which are available for $24 / dozen at mine. Personally I got my used Grolsch bottles for $0.25 each at the bottle recycling shop. They can be reused for decades. They will probably outlive me. Now that is cost effective! 

Cheers,

Christina.

Looks like the glass bottles are about the same price as ours - flip tops about $25 -$30 a dozen and crown seals about $20.

Coopers 740ml PETs are about $15 for 15.

[ChristinaS1]

4 minutes ago, NewBrews said:

Looks like the glass bottles are about the same price as ours - flip tops about $25 -$30 a dozen and crown seals about $20.

Coopers 740ml PETs are about $15 for 15.

Thanks NewBrews. What are the 500mL Cooper PETs going for? -Christina.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

3 minutes ago, ChristinaS1 said:

Thanks NewBrews. What are the 500mL Cooper PETs going for? -Christina.

I’ve never actually seen them nor found them on the website.

Probably being done for Mr Beer in the US. 

You can get 500ml glass from some of the LHBS around.

Edited May 10, 2019 by NewBrews

[therealthing691]

Does anyone in hear use phosphoric acid ??????????  is non rinse but I do a rinse just wondering

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

8 hours ago, therealthing691 said:

Does anyone in hear use phosphoric acid ??????????  is non rinse but I do a rinse just wondering

Probably just about everyone.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeah, it's the main ingredient in no rinse sanitiser like starsan, stellarsan etc. 

[Worthog]

14 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

@BlackSands: that side-by-side experiment your are planning should be interesting. Thanks for undertaking it.

PETs are cost effective? I guess that depends on where you live. A box of 24 500mL (I would not want the 740mL size) Coopers PET bottles sells for $86 on Amazon.ca. A batch would require around 48 bottles. I can't imagine spending $172 plus 15% tax and $10 for shipping. Cost effective? Not! Especially not if I have to buy new ones every 10-12 cycles. 

One reason that people might shy away from glass bottles is because of fear of exploding bottles / bottle bombs. I would like to put a plug in for the safety of Grolsch bottles. They are very sturdy and are able to withstand 4.5 volumes of pressure. If they break, and I have only ever had one break, they don't shatter and send glass flying everywhere. The only thing that happens is that the bottom breaks off in a disc. The same is probably true of amber glass flip-tops LHBS sell, which are available for $24 / dozen at mine. Personally I got my used Grolsch bottles for $0.25 each at the bottle recycling shop. They can be reused for decades. They will probably outlive me. Now that is cost effective! 

Cheers,

Christina.

A$14 for 15 x 740ml PETs.

93 cents each. Use 10 times for 9.3 cents

I thought they were fairly cost effective over the 2 to 3 years I used them, until I began to get more and more failures. But that's just my opinion. 

I agree your Grolsh bottles are cost effective. Good deal! 

Cheers

[Otto Von Blotto]

I had two bottle bombs in the thousands I bottled before I moved to kegs. These were from the same batch of porter, which was fermented with S-04. The other 60 odd bottles that survived were well over carbonated for the style. I suspect the yeast went to sleep in the fermenter and woke up again in the bottles. Luckily the bottles were stashed in a cupboard in the garage so no injuries occurred, just a bit of a mess. I did try to get the yeast going again before bottling but it refused to so I just went ahead. At least I only lost two. 

Otherwise though, I had no problems with them. Never experienced this hop creep from dry hopped beers. Most of them were Sierra Nevada stubbies, and were reused numerous times. I ended up giving about 300 of them away when I switched to kegs. 

My cleaning process involved a triple rinse in hot water after pouring a beer. Once I'd built up around 30-35 of them, I'd take them to one of the laundry tubs (olds have twin tubs), plug in, fill them all with hot water, dose of perc in each, then fill the tub with hot water and throw a bit of perc in around them so the outsides could be cleaned too. Leave overnight then triple rinse in hot water the next day and put them in the sun on my wine rack converted to a bottle drying rack. Once dried they were stored in lidded plastic tubs. On bottling day I'd simply take them out and fill them up, cap and store. They never had the starsan treatment and neither did the crown seals, and never once had a bottle infection. They also never developed the cloudy film inside them, provided they were soaked in perc after the first (i.e. after I'd drunk the beer that came in them) and every subsequent use. 

Cheers

Kelsey

[BlackSands]

14 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

PETs are cost effective? I guess that depends on where you live. A box of 24 500mL (I would not want the 740mL size) Coopers PET bottles sells for $86 on Amazon.ca. A batch would require around 48 bottles. I can't imagine spending $172 plus 15% tax and $10 for shipping. Cost effective? Not! Especially not if I have to buy new ones every 10-12 cycles. 

$86 !?     

 

[ChristinaS1]

20 hours ago, therealthing691 said:

Does anyone in hear use phosphoric acid ??????????  is non rinse but I do a rinse just wondering

Hi realthing691. About rinsing: I know you are in the habit of rinsing soap bubbles away when doing dishes, and that washing bottles feels like washing dishes, but fight the urge to rinse. These bubbles are not the same and you don't have to be afraid of them. If you follow the instructions and stop rinsing you will save time and effort, you avoid wasting water, and the residual phosphoric acid actually provides a bit of nutrition to the yeast. 

There is also a small chance that by rinsing you may actually reintroduce unwanted bacteria, depending on your water source.

Cheers,

Christina. 

[therealthing691]

True  I think I best stop one less process   just so used of doing it   don't want any nasty's

in there . Just habit from different solution .Habit broken lol

 

[BlackSands]

On 5/10/2019 at 11:36 PM, ChristinaS1 said:

@BlackSands: that side-by-side experiment your are planning should be interesting. Thanks for undertaking it.

I tried the "PB2 method" yesterday with a rather grubby PET bottle.  There's no doubt it works, in fact it looked like it had done the job after just a couple of hours.  If that's the case generally then I think you could greatly minimise the contact with the bleach solution when using this technique if you limit the clean to just a few hours.  

I'll have to wait for the next 'soiled' bottle before I can do the sodium percarbonate comparison. 

 

[BlackSands]

On 5/12/2019 at 10:44 AM, BlackSands said:

I'll have to wait for the next 'soiled' bottle before I can do the sodium percarbonate comparison. 

 

And now....   the result of an overnight soak with sodium percarbonate?  It doesn't work!  The residue on the bottles inner surface is still clearly visible. 

This confirms my previous experience.   

[Otto Von Blotto]

I found that too, but if I didn't allow the buildup to occur in the first place, the perc soaks kept them clean. 

[BlackSands]

43 minutes ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

I found that too, but if I didn't allow the buildup to occur in the first place, the perc soaks kept them clean. 

If the build up isn't allowed to occur, and the bottle is therefore clean, and if then sealed then how would it get dirty again and hence why would there be a need to keep them clean with sodium perc?