sterilizing bottles and tub

[rahne]

now i've heard a few thing when it comes to this
1. my dad's friend says as long as you wash the bottles with hot water when your done with them and you wash every thing in hot water before you brew you won't have a problem. and it works for him he is one of the best i've seen he out does brewery's that is how good hes become
2. sterilize with bleach
3. sterilze with the sterilizing powder
4. when sterilizing bottles use miltons (bay bottle sterilizer) just soak the bottles in the solution and then put them on the draining tree no need for rinsing with miltons

so what do you do and whats the best

[geoffclifton]

I give my MT bottles a good shake rinse and sink them in a blue barrel with 4ml bleach/L eg. 1 cup (250mL) per 60L. Brush and rinse with clean water directly before bottling. The blue barrels hold 60 longies so are just right for two brews with a few spares.

Fermenters get a bit more treatment. After bottling I fill them plus a lid full of no frills napisan for a day or more. sponge and rinse thoroughly then share & shake some sod-met at 1 tsp/L (just 2 L or so) and drain upside down for a couple of hours before the next brew. One day I'll get up the courage to dump a new brew into a scummy fermenter

A total clean up for 4 batches of brew costs me less than $2. I also know some who only used hot water as they mt'd but you would not compare their brews well against mine and they now seem to like the way I do it.

Pain in the arse and very time consuming to clean bottles but done well you can have a great stock and variety of consistent beers. I've considered kegging but you cant just grab a six pack for the fridge on the morning of the bbq and for sure with my luck it would take me forever to get all the pressures right for carb and pour etc. But you didn't ask about that

Cheers, Geoff.

[rwh]

I rinse my bottles out three times after pouring the beer, leave to drain. Then on bottling day, I pour a little idophor into each bottle, shake, leave for a few mintes, tip it out, put in a little water, then tip that out just before I fill with beer.

The fermenters normally get the same kind of idopor treatment as the bottles, followed by a rinse or two, and then 2 litres of boiling water shaken around and run through the tap (into a bucket for later use wasing cars, mopping floors, etc). Use gloves when handling the boiling water.

[Boonie]

I too rinse the bottles immediately after pouring, 3 times and turn upside down in my sink to drain.

For bottling I do the following procedure.

For sterilisation, I've gone back to neopink from my local HBS.

I put two heaped teaspoons in 2 litres of hot water into a pouring jug.

I pour the solution into the bottles using the jug and a funnel. I only put approx 100+ ml in each.

I shake the bottles after I have run out of solution and pour the solution from the bottle back into the jug for the next lot of bottles. Sometimes I make 4 litres so I am not refilling the jug too often.

I then half fill the bottles with water, shake vigorously and empty shaking them hard.

I then re-use the solution for my Racking keg (Fermenter), hose, spoon and other bits. I rinse them all with water too.

I throw it out after use as I do not know how long it keeps for.

Cheers

Boonie

[Rone]

For bottles I rinse excess beer residue out with just a bit of cold tap water and a bit of a shake and drain.
Then it is a dose of sodium metabisulphite and a shake and drain.
Then a partial fill with boiling (or recently boiled) water and another shake and drain.
Then just another boiling water and a bit more shaking and draining.
I then whack a bit of tin foil over the top and pack them into milk crates and store them out in the shed for when I need another brew tp be bottled without worrying about anything falling into the neck. I nearly always end up with a bit of water in the bottom of the bottle on bottling day, but I can't see what can happen with sterile water.

[Tipsy]

I rinse twice after drinking and then spray a little iodophor down their necks before bottling.

[Dogger Dan]

I use bleach. (I know, I know, old habits die hard)

Dogger

[Chris]

And you can't teach an old Dogger new tricks...

[gregb]

Boom-tish

Cheers,
Greg

[Dogger Dan]

Nice to see nothing has changed in my minor diastem.




Dogger

[r.magnay]

Hey Dogger, great to see your name back on the site with a current post date beside it.............you will be happy to know, I have never added ice to my brews since you scorned it................and I have never had an infection since!!
Now back to the thread........I am pretty slack when it comes to sanitation, I rinse after pouring, as long as the bottles are still damp inside (could be next morning) I wash them in a commercial glass/line detergent and rinse in clean water prior to bottling. The fermentor is washed in cold water sraight after bottling, and left to drain, next brew time I simply boil a jug of water and tip it in to the fermenter, swish it around a bit and run some through the tap, let it sit for ten minutes or so with the lid on then empty and usually rinse with cold water. I never remove the tap and do all the cleanig of threads etc. that we hear so much about, as I just stated, I never have infections anymore. I used to go to a lot more trouble with washing and sanitising for no better results, so now I am slack and cruising! A different story if the bottles are not ones that I have emptied and rinsed, and I must confess that I get the odd bottle that is infected or at least a little less palatable than the rest of the batch that slips under the radar, but they are rare.

[ryan]

Agree. The sanitation bit is WAY overdone. The average Joe doesn`t need to go to extremes. Common sense rules.
I don`t agree about the ice infections though.
Use the system to cool and no problems for me.

[rwh]

You just have to be careful with the fact that a freezer is full of bacteria. If you sanitise the inside of your containers then there shouldn't be a problem... just don't use a normal ice-cube rack!

[Liz E]

I have been using a Coopers standard homebrew setup for about 15 months now and have produced roughly 45 brews.

I don't bother rinsing bottles; they sit upright in a cardboard box till they're required again. Brewing day sanitising consists of about 1% White King odourless bleach to 99% just-boiled water rinsing for bottles, fermenter and bit 'n pieces. A quick 100% just-boiled water rinse of the bottles and bits again to get rid of the bleach stench and that's it.

Haven't had an infection yet.

[rwh]

So you just leave the dregs in the bottles? Don't you end up with mould growing in the bottom? That stuff's horrible to get rid of, it sticks down there and needs a soak plus bottle brush.

[warra48]

I rinse my just used bottles 3 or 4 times and then stick them upside down on one of the prongs in the diswasher to drain. Leaves them totally dry.
On bottling day, I do much the same as Boonie, using a bout 2 litres of water with sanitiser, and just pour it from a jug into 3 or 4 bottles at a time. Then shake and transfer to the next bottle till all done. No problems with those at all.
I also collect bottles when I play golf. Those get the full treatment. Rinse in water first, then a soak in warm water to loosen the labels, drain, and spray inside and out with a brewing detergent. Leave for half hour, then scrub with bottle brush. Rinse again, and give a final spray with straight sanitiser before storing.
Works for me.

[rahne]

i get my bottles from my dad hes the bar manager of a yacht club i find if i but some of the sanitizing powder in with the water i use to soak the labels of it breaks down the glue and they just fall of after a day soaking (did a trial of what i just said and plain water huge difference plain water had to be ripped of leaving label bits behind)

[Boonie]

i get my bottles from my dad hes the bar manager of a yacht club i find if i but some of the sanitizing powder in with the water i use to soak the labels of it breaks down the glue and they just fall of after a day soaking (did a trial of what i just said and plain water huge difference plain water had to be ripped of leaving label bits behind)

Leave the labels in the water for 2-3 days with a little bleach (reason below). I delabelled about 400 bottles that I sold on ebay. I filled each bottle with plain hot water then placed them in the Laundry Tub, Filled tub up with warm water too.

I added bleach after the water started to smell after a week , but I found I could leave for 3 days and the labels fell off and the glue was wiped off very easily. I just have not got around to delabelling all of them. I do not delabel the ones with the really old labels as I like to show them off.

Cheers

Boonie

[Liz E]

So you just leave the dregs in the bottles? Don't you end up with mould growing in the bottom? That stuff's horrible to get rid of, it sticks down there and needs a soak plus bottle brush. :o

Yes, sometimes mould take make a home in the bottles but I re-fill the bottles fairly soon after consumption so the little nasties don't really have all that much time to properly adhere to the surface. The two hot rinses are all that's required. I've used the bottle brush on only about five of my own bottles since I first began HB'ing.