Dishwasher Sanitize vs. Jet Bottle Washer

[goschman]

I rinse my bottles well after use and run the dishwasher on short cycle with no dry using about 1/2 oz of star san in the detergent tray. May not be very thorough but I am yet to have a bad bottle

[gsandel]

Unless they have been sitting around unrinsed I don't get too chuffed with cleaning the bottles. I rinse well with hot water right after emptying them and then when it's time to bottle I either dunk/spray them in/with idophor/starsan if I am only bottling a couple off the keg, or put them all in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes the night before I am going to bottle. The dishwasher works too, instead of the oven if you can be confident of the temp inside.

However when my stock of reusable bottles with labels still on gets a bit high I take an evening and soak them all in hot PBW solution mainly because it makes it easier to remove the labels.

This was me exactly, until I turned to kegs...sometimes dunked, sometimes used dishwasher.  Very rarely had a bad bottle from this (these) methods.

[Pinski]

I usually keg, but when the need to bottle comes up i have a stash of well rinsed bottles that either go throught the "sanitize" cycle in the dishwasher or a StarSan dunk.  I've had my eye on a sulphiter and bottle tree for a while.  I played around with a sulphiter at the brew shop the other day and it seemed like the action was really tight and might be an issue being stable on top of a bottle tree.  Anyone have comments to this concern?

[davidgzach]

Gotta put another shout out for the dishwasher.  No chemicals to worry about.  One tbs of B-Brite and 1.5 hours later you are ready to bottle.....no fuss, no muss!

[erockrph]

+1 to rinse the hell out of it right after pouring, then in the dishwasher on the "Sanitize" setting before bottling.

[tygo]

I'm a little obsessive about bottle cleaning.  All bottles are rinsed well after beer is poured out of them.  Bottles without labels are given an oxyclean soak, a saniclean rinse, and baked in the oven for 40 minutes at 375F.  Bottles with labels get another initial oxyclean soak to remove the labels and then the treatment above.

Yes, I admit that this is overkill.  But it makes me feel confident that the bottles are as sanitary as I can make them.  I get away with this since I don't bottle all that many beers.

[davidgzach]

+1 to rinse the hell out of it right after pouring, then in the dishwasher on the "Sanitize" setting before bottling.

Yep. +1 to ^^^^^^^.

[tschmidlin]

I
P.S.  no reason to rinse iodophor

learn something new every day.

I suspect it depends how much you use. Tried some nasty-finishing beer at the last homebrewers' meeting that more experienced tasters and brewers than me (read: BJCP National) said was iodophor.

I've had a few of these, to me it tastes like sweet tarts but not really in a good way.

[mtnrockhopper]

I
P.S.  no reason to rinse iodophor

learn something new every day.

I suspect it depends how much you use. Tried some nasty-finishing beer at the last homebrewers' meeting that more experienced tasters and brewers than me (read: BJCP National) said was iodophor.

That may have been caused by iodophor being used at the wrong concentration. I bet a lot of lazy brewer don't measure and just pour a glop into a bucket of water. The actual dose is pretty small I think.

[beersk]

I
P.S.  no reason to rinse iodophor

learn something new every day.

I suspect it depends how much you use. Tried some nasty-finishing beer at the last homebrewers' meeting that more experienced tasters and brewers than me (read: BJCP National) said was iodophor.

That may have been caused by iodophor being used at the wrong concentration. I bet a lot of lazy brewer don't measure and just pour a glop into a bucket of water. The actual dose is pretty small I think.

This is what I do with beer line cleaner, I don't actually measure out the 1/2oz per quart or whatever they say. Same for StarSan. I don't understand why people use iodophor when StarSan is available and awesome.

[davidgzach]

+1^^^^^^^^ StarSan rocks!

[bigchicken]

I treat my bottles like any other glass in my kitchen cabinets. After use, they are washed by hand or in the dishwasher. On bottle day, I use a spring pump bottle washer filled with starsan and then dry them on a bottle tree. Works fantastic and requires only a small amount of sanitizer. I've not tried using the washer while mounted on the bottle tree because my tree is too tall when sitting on my counter. Or I'm too short.

[ncoleman]

Gotta put another shout out for the dishwasher.  No chemicals to worry about.  One tbs of B-Brite and 1.5 hours later you are ready to bottle.....no fuss, no muss!

Glad to see all the agreement on dishwashing. Thanks for the input, all.

[tom]

Just to recap, dishwasher for sanitizing, not cleaning.

[anje]

I've been a bit scared to use my dishwasher, tbh. Do all of you who use it not have rinse-aids? Or are those not as much of a problem as I've been led to believe?  (Killer hard water here means that I'll have opaque glassware before long without adding something.)