sanitising bottles

[Barramullafella]

I have read a lot about this subject above and all good. I wonder if there is a thing of over doing the washing/sanatising. For example if I wash a bottle 5 times and sanatise 3 times this is overkill - IMHO. But if I rinse out bottle x 3 times straight after decanter, store on bottle tree until ready for use, and then do a simple wash with sanatiser before refilling then I find this economical with time and solution. Being a lazy prick this suits me lol, and I get clean beer with no infection.

One bloke I knew of years ago was running 30+ FV and selling the beer. He never cleaned out the air locks [had slime in them], used same yeast or part of in the bottom of FV for the next brew/s, and only quick rinse bottles with water and left in sun to sterilise and dry before bottling the next batch. I was surprised none of the beers were not infected.  

FREDPACE come back.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Barramullafella

[Classic Brewing Co]

1 minute ago, Barramullafella said:

I have read a lot about this subject above and all good. I wonder if there is a thing of over doing the washing/sanatising. For example if I wash a bottle 5 times and sanatise 3 times this is overkill - IMHO. But if I rinse out bottle x 3 times straight after decanter, store on bottle tree until ready for use, and then do a simple wash with sanatiser before refilling then I find this economical with time and solution. Being a lazy prick this suits me lol, and I get clean beer with no infection.

One bloke I knew of years ago was running 30+ FV and selling the beer. He never cleaned out the air locks [had slime in them], used same yeast or part of in the bottom of FV for the next brew/s, and only quick rinse bottles with water and left in sun to sterilise and dry before bottling the next batch. I was surprised none of the beers were not infected.  

So I am I.

[Malter White]

29 minutes ago, Barramullafella said:

I have read a lot about this subject above and all good. I wonder if there is a thing of over doing the washing/sanatising. For example if I wash a bottle 5 times and sanatise 3 times this is overkill - IMHO. But if I rinse out bottle x 3 times straight after decanter, store on bottle tree until ready for use, and then do a simple wash with sanatiser before refilling then I find this economical with time and solution. Being a lazy prick this suits me lol, and I get clean beer with no infection.

One bloke I knew of years ago was running 30+ FV and selling the beer. He never cleaned out the air locks [had slime in them], used same yeast or part of in the bottom of FV for the next brew/s, and only quick rinse bottles with water and left in sun to sterilise and dry before bottling the next batch. I was surprised none of the beers were not infected.  

FREDPACE come back.

If people want to clean and clean and clean, who are we to stand in their way? But I'm like you, Barra, inherently lazy.  I owe @MartyG1525230263 a beer for making my bottle cleaning life so much easier for me. Marty has a science background and uses words like "substrate". I never knew what that meant until I discovered it meant I don't need to sanitise clean bottles. The basis is if the bottles are clean there's nothing for bacteria to stick to. So my process is rinse out after drinking beer, an overnight soak in (sod perc) laundry soaker, rinse and dry in the sun (if it happens to be shining). In Marty we trust.  

[Classic Brewing Co]

5 minutes ago, MUZZY said:

If people want to clean and clean and clean, who are we to stand in their way? But I'm like you, Barra, inherently lazy.  I owe @MartyG1525230263 a beer for making my bottle cleaning life so much easier for me. Marty has a science background and uses words like "substrate". I never knew what that meant until I discovered it meant I don't need to sanitise clean bottles. The basis is if the bottles are clean there's nothing for bacteria to stick to. So my process is rinse out after drinking beer, an overnight soak in (sod perc) laundry soaker, rinse and dry in the sun (if it happens to be shining). In Marty we trust.  

I agree with Muzzy you can go overboard with washing/sanitising etc, I think after seeing a few mates home brew set-ups & how they treat their equipment & the state of their bottles it has made me a bit fussy. I was given a quantity of Glass Longnecks & PET by another guy who had given up brewing a few years ago & the state of the bottles was appalling, I only managed to keep a small quantity of them as some of them even had spiders nests in them, cockroaches, dirt etc. 

Anyway I don't believe in overdoing it but I still follow a fairly strict regime.

Cheers.

[Marty_G]

9 hours ago, MUZZY said:

If people want to clean and clean and clean, who are we to stand in their way? But I'm like you, Barra, inherently lazy.  I owe @MartyG1525230263 a beer for making my bottle cleaning life so much easier for me. Marty has a science background and uses words like "substrate". I never knew what that meant until I discovered it meant I don't need to sanitise clean bottles. The basis is if the bottles are clean there's nothing for bacteria to stick to. So my process is rinse out after drinking beer, an overnight soak in (sod perc) laundry soaker, rinse and dry in the sun (if it happens to be shining). In Marty we trust.  

When am I getting that beer by the way. 

 

[Malter White]

2 hours ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

When am I getting that beer by the way. 

 

It was probably a stupid offer to make on my part. Your beers are most likely better than mine anyway.

[stquinto]

I use a powder from the local HB shop, Chemipro Oxi it's called here. It's got sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide in it according to the instructions. The dosage is 4g/l into some boiled water with cold tap water added to make it hand-bearable. I soak the (glass) bottles in a big sink  for about 10 minutes to get the yeast out of the bottle, then drain them. I used to use a spare dishwasher rack to drain them but I bought a bottle rack since.

When it's bottling day I make up about 18 litres of the chemipro stuff and soak the bottle for 4 minutes in the solution, then drain them. 

When it's brew day I make up about 6 litres of the solution and swirl it around the sides of the FV for 4 minutes. So far, so good.

[Journeyman]

9 hours ago, stquinto said:

I use a powder from the local HB shop, Chemipro Oxi it's called here. It's got sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide in it according to the instructions. The dosage is 4g/l into some boiled water with cold tap water added to make it hand-bearable. I soak the (glass) bottles in a big sink  for about 10 minutes to get the yeast out of the bottle, then drain them. I used to use a spare dishwasher rack to drain them but I bought a bottle rack since.

When it's bottling day I make up about 18 litres of the chemipro stuff and soak the bottle for 4 minutes in the solution, then drain them. 

When it's brew day I make up about 6 litres of the solution and swirl it around the sides of the FV for 4 minutes. So far, so good.

So I'm a bit slack on it it seems. Finish bottle, swirl some water in it, tip that out, swirl again and drain. Day of bottling, quick eyeball of the bottle to make sure there is no ring around the neck, quick spray of stellar, onto the bottle tree then fill the sucker.  

The only soak etc. I have done is for bottles for which I have no provenance. i.e. they came from someone else and I didn't know what their regimen was.

[Malter White]

On 5/9/2021 at 10:07 AM, MUZZY said:

Hi Fredpace.
Some might disagree with this but you don't have to sanitise your bottles. If they are clean, THEY ARE CLEAN and bacteria won't stick to a clean surface. You do need to clean your bottles though.
My process starts after drinking the contents:
As soon as possible after I rinse with hot tap water (not boiling because I use plastic bottles) to remove all visible gunk.
Then a day or two before bottling day I fill a tub with hot water and add a capful of sodium percarbonate based laundry soaker. I then submerge all my bottles. If the water is too hot to for my hands I use the handles of my long mixing spoons in the bottles to drown them. I let them soak overnight.
Next day I give them a swish around and drain them and then rinse with a swish out of cold water. Hot water might be better but my cold water tap is closest to where I sit next to the tub. The hot water tap is harder to reach.
Then I dry them inverted on my makeshift bottle tree - a wire basket I had sitting at home. Bottle trees cost around $60 or more. Drying them in the sun (if it's around) is best because the sunlight will assist killing bacteria too.

If my bottles have visible dirty deposits I use the silicon brush (pictured) to scrub them before soaking.

I've used this process for around 3 years and haven't had issues. Sanitising your bottles isn't necessary in my opinion but I'm not going to tell anyone they shouldn't sanitise their bottles. That is a personal decision.



 

@Connradd My process and also in this thread others have put forward some information which could be of benefit to you.

[ChristinaS1]

You may find this thread interesting:

Bottles are prone to developing an invisible biofilm, especially if you dry hop. Over time it builds up and can become visible to the naked eye, at which point It can be very difficult to remove. A brush and alkaline cleaner will not work at this stage; in my experience the only thing that will work is unscented bleach. I try to prevent biofilm from building up by giving my bottles an overnight soak with a capful of unscented bleach on a regular basis, after about every third use. If you don't overdo it with the bleach, a few rinses will get rid of the smell. 

Unless I have treated them with bleach that cycle, I sanitize my bottles with Starsan prior to each use. I like that it is no rinse.

The rinsing issue is why I don't treat my bottles with an alkaline cleaner prior to each use. 

If bleach did not require rinsing I would use bleach all the time and stop sanitizing with Starsan. It is possible sodium metabisulphite might work as well as bleach but it too requires rinsing.

Cheers,

Christina.

 

 

Edited May 13, 2021 by ChristinaS1

[Malter White]

26 minutes ago, ChristinaS1 said:

You may find this thread interesting:

Bottles are prone to developing an invisible biofilm, especially if you dry hop. Over time it builds up and can become visible to the naked eye, at which point It can be very difficult to remove. A brush and alkaline cleaner will not work at this stage; in my experience the only thing that will work is unscented bleach. I try to prevent biofilm from building up by giving my bottles an overnight soak with a capful of unscented bleach on a regular basis, after about every third use. If you don't overdo it with the bleach, a few rinses will get rid of the smell. 

Unless I have treated them with bleach that cycle, I sanitize my bottles with Starsan prior to each use. I like that it is no rinse.

The rinsing issue is why I don't treat my bottles with an alkaline cleaner prior to each use. 

If bleach did not require rinsing I would use bleach all the time and stop sanitizing with Starsan. It is possible sodium metabisulphite might work as well as bleach but it too requires rinsing.

Cheers,

Christina.

 

 

This is rather interesting to me because I've only recently started dry hopping. I haven't encountered any problems yet but if I do I'll now know where to start searching for a solution.
Thanks, Christina.

[loafing_about]

On 5/13/2021 at 7:39 AM, Journeyman said:

So I'm a bit slack on it it seems. Finish bottle, swirl some water in it, tip that out, swirl again and drain. Day of bottling, quick eyeball of the bottle to make sure there is no ring around the neck, quick spray of stellar, onto the bottle tree then fill the sucker.  

The only soak etc. I have done is for bottles for which I have no provenance. i.e. they came from someone else and I didn't know what their regimen was.

I follow a similar process. I rinse 3 times straight after drinking with tap water, then drain overnight and store until bottling day. Bottling day is spray stellar san over bottle tree and into each bottle then drain and fill. 

[RDW]

Keep your eye on gumtree / Facebook marketplace for one of these beauties. I picked one up for $20 and made my life so much easier. My regime is to rinse bottles after drinking. I make a mix every few months or so of a couple litres of water and stellarsan solution and use this to swish around the FV before brewing and then use that in the below to sterilise bottles on bottling day after leaving them to soak overnight in the Aldi laundry soaker others have mentioned. I take the ‘belt and braces’ approach, but I only have the craft fermenter so only do a few bottles at a time.

 

Edited May 15, 2021 by RDW

[jackgym]

After reading everyone's bottle cleaning tips, I've changed my process.

I was using a drop of dishwasher detergent in each bottle and soaking overnight.

But after a closer look I noticed a film collecting inside the PETs (probably from the dishwashing liquid?)

A few brewers just rinse their bottles out with water after drinking.  I'll go one step further.

I'll dice the DW liquid and just soak the bottles overnight and next morning run a bottle brush through them and rinse.

I read a while ago that Paul (PB with the sore thumb) didn't go overboard with bottle preparation. Maybe he can clarify this?

[Classic Brewing Co]

11 minutes ago, jackgym said:

I was using a drop of dishwasher detergent 

Just my two bobs worth - avoid any detergents on glasses, FV's & equipment as they will create a film & also affect head retention on glasses.

My opinion may not please everybody but I use good old Bi Carbonate of Soda for initial cleaning, rinse off & then use a No Rinse Sanitiser.

 

[jackgym]

6 minutes ago, CLASSIC said:

Just my two bobs worth - avoid any detergents on glasses, FV's & equipment as they will create a film & also affect head retention on glasses.

My opinion may not please everybody but I use good old Bi Carbonate of Soda for initial cleaning, rinse off & then use a No Rinse Sanitiser.

 

CLASSIC, I think it was you who alerted me about the dishwashing liquid.

[Classic Brewing Co]

10 minutes ago, jackgym said:

CLASSIC, I think it was you who alerted me about the dishwashing liquid.

Yes I remember it was.

Most household cleaners should be avoided, since either they are unsafe for human consumption (like bathroom and oven cleaners) or they are too mild (like dishwashing detergents) to effectively clean your brewing equipment.

[Journeyman]

On 5/13/2021 at 9:09 AM, Journeyman said:

So I'm a bit slack on it it seems. Finish bottle, swirl some water in it, tip that out, swirl again and drain. Day of bottling, quick eyeball of the bottle to make sure there is no ring around the neck, quick spray of stellar, onto the bottle tree then fill the sucker.  

The only soak etc. I have done is for bottles for which I have no provenance. i.e. they came from someone else and I didn't know what their regimen was.

I thought I should clarify this.

I do use soaking on occasion. e.g. I have an FV soaking overnight now - I got caught up on other things and it sat empty except for trub for 5 days, so it got a clean and soak in hot water with sod perc.

The 36 bottles for the cider I just made got washed (& some of them bottle-brushed) in hot sod perc solution in the laundry sink because they were all bottles I had gotten from a guy giving them away.

I've also bleached overnight and the sod perc soaked a couple of FV's that were badly stained to the point normal wash and scrub didn't remove it - they now look and perform like brand new. 

[RDW]

1 hour ago, CLASSIC said:

Just my two bobs worth - avoid any detergents on glasses, FV's & equipment as they will create a film & also affect head retention on glasses.

 

Yes...always good practise to rinse your glass just before the pour, regardless of how they were washed. Nothing worse than a mucky/detergent residue glass (well obviously there are lots of things worse but you get my drift! )