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Author Topic: Clean your bottles !  (Read 9847 times)

Offline mugwort

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #15 on: August 18, 2013, 10:17:57 pm »
Man, i get the same ring thing in the necks. Bottle washing is such a pain; most dreaded chore in the whole craft.What causes the ring? I was wondering if it might be iodophor residue.  I have tried to pare down my used bottles, and having so many different types isnt a help either. I wish ther was an easier way.

That ring is frequently organic material.  With my bottles, brett and wild ales tend to leave rings, but so do some clean beers, such as certain long bottle-aged batches.

Removing this ring (and other debris) is easy as long as you have a safe place to let your bottles stand for a few days.  For me, that's the tiled laundry room counter.

I put a small amount of bleach in each bottle and then fill the rest of the way with water.  Forget about them for a week and then empty them, rinse and invert to dry.  Do this as bottles become available, and you have a nice clean supply of bottles at your command.

Of course, gotta keep kids and pets away.  And it helps with my wife that I volunteered for permanent laundry duty.
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Offline hb_wood_products

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #16 on: August 20, 2013, 12:19:25 am »
I guess I've been lucky. Rinse well after use. Run them through the dishwasher - has "sani-temp" no heat dry. store upside down in box until brewday. One-Step sanitizer soak before bottling. We put an eye on them at each step and we may have one or two culls that have to go back through again.

Offline EThome

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #17 on: August 21, 2013, 12:10:32 pm »
I have typically done a good vigorous rinse (2 - 3X) as described by several already right after pouring and stored them until the next bottling day. The day before bottling, I usually run them all through the hot rinse in the dishwasher on a spare bottom rack for the outsides, then do a hard and hot rinse with a jet bottle washer for the inside. Lastly I fill them all with a StarSan solution with the bottle filler and then drain the StarSan back into the bucket and place them upside down back on the spare dishwasher rack.

Maybe every third time or so I will soak them in a utility sink filled with PBW laced water in lieu of the dishwasher rinse. Occasionally/rarely during this I'll notice scraps of film when I drain the PBW out of a bottle or two.
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Offline klickitat jim

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #18 on: August 21, 2013, 12:59:39 pm »
Been a while since I've bottled but usually I scrub inside and out in hot soapy water. I use no fragrance natural soap. Rinse well and dry. Then on bottle day I soak in no rinse starsan and drip dry on a bottle tree. Never came close to any problems

Offline rjberry

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #19 on: August 21, 2013, 01:13:25 pm »
My process of recycling beer bottles

Immediately upon finishing a beer, follow this process.

1. Hot rinse 3X then store covered until ready for bottling
2. hot PBW soak
3. hot rinse
4. starsan soak
5. drain on bottle tree or equivalent
6. fill/cap
7. carbonate
8. chill
9. drink
10. go to step 1 and repeat
11. :)

Yep, that's it!  I do this minus the PBW, just store them clean and sanitize with Starsan.  I keep a spray bottle of Starsan under my sink too and try to hit them after the initial rinse most of the time too.  I have enough bottles now that when I come across a dirty one prior to bottling I toss it in the recycling bin(and curse the person who did a lousy job rinsing it.......couldn't have been me!)
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Offline sharg54

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #20 on: October 04, 2013, 04:42:46 pm »
Ive been bottling from day one because I don't feel Keging is practical for me. Taking a keg to a friends house is a bit of a pain. Like a lot of the ppl here I do the old shake and dump to clean out my bottles with the water as hot as my thumb will stand. I have noticed they have a tendency to cloud up after a time especially with porters and stouts. Just take your bottle brush and give it a good scrub about every 3 or so fills. Don't let them sit until later to clean them out. Once you empty it clean it out. If you let it sit it will film up and be harder to keep clean. Ive been using the same 12 oz bottles for about 2 years now and they are just as clear as day one. You don't need all the fancy cleaners just some Dawn dish soap and a brush with a good blast from a bottle cleaner to clear the soap works fine when they start to crud up. Get the water as hot as you can stand it and save a few bucks.
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Offline greatplainsbrewer

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #21 on: October 04, 2013, 04:48:22 pm »
Rinse and drain.  PBW soak on brew day- I already have my mlt full of PBW.  Rinse and drain.  When dry, cover each bottle with a foil square and bake at 350 F for 1hour.

Offline hubie

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #22 on: October 07, 2013, 08:21:04 am »
You don't need all the fancy cleaners just some Dawn dish soap and a brush with a good blast from a bottle cleaner to clear the soap works fine when they start to crud up. Get the water as hot as you can stand it and save a few bucks.

I depends upon the nature of the gunk you are trying to get rid of and how much effort you want to put in.  Dish soap only contains dispersants and surfactants, which means that once the gunk has been lifted from the surface they can take it away, but they aren't good at lifting the gunk in the first place (which is why you need to scrub the surfaces).  What makes the fancy cleansers fancy is that they have stuff in it like sodium percarbonate which goes right after the organic gunk.  If you want to go cheap, you can go with powdered dishwasher detergent or a generic brand of Oxiclean (or Straight-A or One-Step, etc.), but those would have different percentages of percarbonates and such in them which means you'd need to use a bit more than you would with PBW or Oxiclean, or you need to soak it a bit longer.  Bleach is another inexpensive option, but you want to make sure you are using it correctly so that it is effective and safe to you and your brewing equipment.  You won't get rid of organic films with dish soap without a heck of a lot of scrubbing, and if you have mineral deposits, that is a whole different beast to attack.

One of the early Brew Strong episodes had a great interview with Charlie Tally of Five Star Chemicals.  He did a really good job talking about all of the different kinds of cleaners and how best to use them.  He covered the best ways to use bleach very well in either that episode, or one that I recall from Basic Brewing Radio.

Offline beersk

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #23 on: October 07, 2013, 02:48:08 pm »
Ive been bottling from day one because I don't feel Keging is practical for me. Taking a keg to a friends house is a bit of a pain.
Filling a growler quick off the tap is a huge pain?
Jesse

Offline davidgzach

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #24 on: October 07, 2013, 05:38:42 pm »
Rinse 2-3 times after use and then in the dishwasher on sanitize cycle with a tablespoon of B-Brite. 

Never a problem and cleans the dishwasher real nice too!

Dave
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Offline Jarhno

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #25 on: October 10, 2013, 11:56:07 am »
Triple rinse after pouring is my method. Fill it about a quarter of the way, shake, empty, repeat 2 more times. Seems to work well.

This is what I have been doing as well, and I believe that I read this technique in Palmer's How To Brew.

After reading everyone's response, is it pretty accepted that that method is inadequate?
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Offline morticaixavier

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #26 on: October 10, 2013, 01:44:57 pm »
Triple rinse after pouring is my method. Fill it about a quarter of the way, shake, empty, repeat 2 more times. Seems to work well.

This is what I have been doing as well, and I believe that I read this technique in Palmer's How To Brew.

After reading everyone's response, is it pretty accepted that that method is inadequate?

it's perfectly adequate... until it isn't. I have not had a problem with the rinse right after use method but I don't really re-use bottles over and over. If it held sour beer I just recycle it. Saison yeast also tends to coat the bottle really really well. All that being said, if you sterilize your bottles in the over before use the beer is not going to get infected from any residue left inside the bottle. possible flavor effects are a different story though.
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Offline TrippleRippleBrewer

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #27 on: November 13, 2013, 11:01:32 am »
Ive been bottling from day one because I don't feel Keging is practical for me. Taking a keg to a friends house is a bit of a pain.
Filling a growler quick off the tap is a huge pain?

You beat me to it. I like bottles but....
In my opinion NOTHING about kegging makes it less practical or more work than bottling.
My beer is better than it ever was in bottles, it lasts longer, and it is so much easier to deal with packaging I can't say enough good things about kegging. It changed the hobby for me dramatically and I'll never go back. This topic was reminder for me of staring through bottles looking for junk on the bottoms or in the neck and all the PBW I used to go through soaking them. So glad to be done with that I hated it.

Offline beersk

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #28 on: November 13, 2013, 01:51:54 pm »
Ive been bottling from day one because I don't feel Keging is practical for me. Taking a keg to a friends house is a bit of a pain.
Filling a growler quick off the tap is a huge pain?

You beat me to it. I like bottles but....
In my opinion NOTHING about kegging makes it less practical or more work than bottling.
My beer is better than it ever was in bottles, it lasts longer, and it is so much easier to deal with packaging I can't say enough good things about kegging. It changed the hobby for me dramatically and I'll never go back. This topic was reminder for me of staring through bottles looking for junk on the bottoms or in the neck and all the PBW I used to go through soaking them. So glad to be done with that I hated it.

True, but I wouldn't have a problem going back to bottling if my kegerator died. I've been wanting to brew smaller batches anyway...bottling 2.5 gallons would be easy and you'd get a case out of it...more variety! I like the idea of beer lasting only a couple weeks instead of months. Five gallons is too much for me. But, I still keg 3 gallons in 5 gallon kegs, so no biggie. Kegging is just expensive; that's the only real downside.
Jesse

Offline Upstate Dan

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Re: Clean your bottles !
« Reply #29 on: November 13, 2013, 02:23:18 pm »
Kegging is by far more convenient, but I wouldn't say it's a slam dunk that it's "better" than bottling. I keg my house beers. Anything new and exciting that I want to share, bring to club meetings, or enter into competitions I bottle.

On the carbonation side, I know that scientifically speaking all dissolved CO2 is equal, but I perceive a better mouthfeel with bottled beers.

On my cleaning routine I also sprinkle in a tiny bit of Oxyclean right after drinking, shake up, rinse, and dry.