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Cleaning Bottles
I'm very new to home brewing. What is the best equipment to clean the bottles. I made my first batch and did not rinse the bottles out. So now I have this hardened gunk in the bottom and its taking forever to clean them out with the standard brush I have. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
I'm not saying this is the textbook answer, but try this...
1. Bring a pot of water just to a boil add dish soap into it...stir around to agitate the soap and get it to suds up...add about 3 oz of white vinegar....then drop your dirty bottles down into the hot water. 2. Go enjoy a homebrew or two and wait for an hour to go by....
3. Use your kitchen faucet to rinse out your bottles and see how they turned out...
Let me know how it worked out for you. Also, after I run this routine on mine I store them in their cardboard box they came in upside down until time to bottle...then sanitize well (20 mins) before bottling up the next batch.
Cheers.
Thats probably the only way that i know of too. but bottles aren't that expensive if you are using standard 12 oz's. I would just pitch them and start over. Also I find its good to save my bottles from the micros that i buy. just be sure to rinse them out. Cheers and good luck
My method:
Take a few tablespoons of Straight A cleaner (or equivalent) and mix with several gallons of water. Let your bottles soak in there for several minutes.
Now with a sanitizer (iodophor, star san, etc), take a few teaspoons and mix the same way. Soak your bottles in there about 30 seconds.
I don't boil the bottles. Since water gets to at least 212F, unless beer glass is tempered, it could shatter. If this works for some, so be it. When I used to bottle and used that method above, I could clean about 50 bottles in a half hour.
i wouldnt use dish soap, use bleach or PBW or some other sanitizer
when I'm saving them I put them in water to soak so nothing has time to harden,then I just rinse them out with a good shake till I don't see any foam.
Before using them I use a standard brush on them and give them a couple minutes in a santization mix.
Oh thanks BrewLuva... I knew I forgot to add something to my message.
Dish soap is not a good idea. The vast majority contain perfumes, which can seep into your equipment and cause off flavors. A package of Straight A which makes 32 gallons runs about $5. For a while I was using generic non-scented electrasol, which was about $4 for 2 pounds.
Avoid any detergents with perfumes. Homebrew cleaner is pretty cheap anyway.
Yeah i made the dish soap mistake once, i was so anxious to get brewing, a few batches after that error all tasted soapy. It's hard to choke down a Palmolive Pilsner.
Well I never made the mistake, but I was researching the topic early on in my brew career, and just about every web site said NOT to use dish soap, or any soap with fragrances.
Besides, cleaning detergents from the homebrew shop are cheap. I always buy Straight A. I think the last package I bought cost me $4.50, and it usually lasts a few months. If you are tight on green, go buy some generic non scented electrasol. I'm pretty sure you can buy this at a dollar store. It doesn't work as good, but it cleans.
Hi, as hot of water as you can get into them,
I use a tablespoon of B-Brite oxinginating type
cleaner leave sit overnight, rinse well, with one
or two times (cleaning) it will remove quite a bit
of baked on stuff, I use it too on cookware, very
good stuff, about 4.00 a 1/2 pound from brew shop.
Good Luck
PS: a guy I know has a large rubbermaid type
bin with a lid on it about 6-7 gal. filled with this same
B-brite and after drinking sinks them in the tub for a day
then rinse and place upside down in beer cases. Then
he has no cleaning to do day of bottling !.
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