Sanitizing Bottles--is it necessary?
Sounds like some of you guys should check out a product refered to as a bottle tree. It obviously doesn't sanitize them but it's great place to hang dry them. I brewed for years without one and now that I have one I wonder how I did it.
Sometimes when i am out i drink out of the bottles, i give some away and poeple may drink out of the bottles. I think it would be pretty important to sanitize becase of this reason alone, as well as other issues.
yes, you have to sanitize because the alcohol content of most beers is not enough to kill all the different type of bacteria that can spoil a batch. And why take the chance on such a beautiful, innocent thing as young beer.
The following method works for people who need to bottle/brew on a whim. By that I mean that you have not had time to plan for the bottling/brewing process. Instead, you are like me and just decide that you feel like doing it. If you start from ground zero and have to run your bottles throught the dishwasher, you are easily in for a 3 to 4 hour chore.
Between brewing I have to store my bottles somewhere. So I choose to store them in 5 gallon plastic food containers with 4 cap fulls of bleach. After I drink a beer, I rinse out the sediment and place it in the container. If the container gets full and I am not ready to bottle, I take out the bottles, drain them, and top them off with a small piece of plastic wrap. (about 10 minutes to do the 21 bottles that fit in a 5 gallon container).
So when I "feel" like bottling/brewing, I rinse the bottles out with hot water and go. I am up to batch number 9 and I have not had a bad bottle yet.
I use the same batch of bleach for 3 months. (about 200 bottles)
I have to give the credit for this method to Charlie Papazian, author of "Joy of HomeBrewing". I highly, highly, highly, recommend this book to anybody who wants to brew, or has brewed beer.
Again in the long run it might seem like more time, but it reduces the bottling day time slot from 3 hours to 1. In fact, I usually bottle the previous batch while I wait for the present batch to boil for an hour on the stove. This way, I clean up the brewing and bottling mess at once from 2 sequetial batches. This increases cleaning efficiency and therefore it reduces my overall time to make a batch.
HI, as to the sanitizing issue..When I get my bottles, I get 16 oz. returnables that are empty from a local distributor who sells them to me el-cheapo' for the deposit cost of like a $1.50 for the case. SO therefore i soak the heck out of them for a few days with a light bleach and water solution. This begins to kill all the little nasties in the bottom and REALLY loosens the labels. After a couple days i literally wipe off the labels and clean the inside with a bottle brush. When I get to the bottling process I use the sterilizing powder that I get at my local home brew shop and mix accordingly with hot water. I give them each a good dip and put them upside down to dry in a bottle rack I McGyvered up myself. As for my take on the question if continued sterilisation is concerned, As cheap as the steri. solution is I'd rather go 1 step too far and not contaminate a batch than chance it to cutting a corner.
Just my 2 cents worth.
I second the bottle tree idea. I also have a doodad that sits on top of the tree that's like a bowl with a squirty nozzle in the middle. You fill the bowl with sanitizer (I use starsan), and then stick the upside down bottle on the squirty nozzle and push down. It squirts the sanitizer into the bottle, coating the whole inside. Then you just put it on the bottle tree to dry. Very quick and handy, I can sanitize 50 bottles in about 10 minutes. Definitely worth the $.
Im with crasher on this one. As soon as I began using one step and starsan in a jet bowl I can bottle a batch in about an hour. Very easy and quick and if the bottles were rinsed out and soaked to remove labels you don't have to worry about anything growing inside your bottles. Sanitization is one small step that the homebrewer can do to ensure that they are making a better beer. Sanitize everything before and after each use.
I use a big Rubbermaid tub with a snapping lid for sanitation. I fill half way with boiling hot water and sanitizing powder, give it a stir and then drop in my bottles and stir again. I grab em out with a pair of tongs that have then ends covered with silicone and drain them out and store on a bottle rack until dry. Then I store em in another Rubbermaid tub with the lid until I am ready to bottle.
Next time you're bottling and up to your elbows in washing and rinsing and cursing and thinking evil thoughts about the bottles, and wondering if they NEED to be sanintized or if it's some wicked joke by the LHBS, try this experiment.
Pour a small amount of any beer into a shot glass. Don't do anything special to the glass, just rinse it out and pour some beer in.
Then wrap it in Saran wrap or something to seal it up and leave it on the counter for a week or so.
****one week later***
That smell? That'd be bacteria was not killed by alcohol. Nasty, huh? Now, aren't you glad you only lost a shot glass and not 5 gallons worth?
Always sanitize. Dishwasher, One Step, Star San, Idophor, common household bleach, genuine pixie dust, pact with an evil being, whatever works for you, just do it.
bra wrote:
Hi,
I'm interested in knowing more about the one that mentions the chlorine sanitizing. What is your process?
Also, could we sanitize with a fully delveloped alcohol like whiskey or vodka? And could you use listerine?
okay I think this bottle routine is going to drive me crazy.
I boiled bottles back in the early 80's for babies milk! Now if I could figure out how to seal those I'd be in business! Dange beer bottle holes are so small for trying to clean
I initially tried using chlorine for santizing and it sucks. You need to rinse everything with HOT water or all you do is contaminate things again. I ruined 4 batches of beer wasting time with chlorine but since I switched to Iodophor I hardly ever habve a bad batch. AND you DO need ot sanitize the bottles. I use Iodophor in a bucket and sumerge the bottles. leave in bucket for 2 to 5 minutes and set on counter. Works great.
DC
I initially tried using chlorine for santizing and it sucks.
I'm going to second that. I'm about to dump out 45 bottles of chlorophenol-ed beer due to my using chlorine-based cleaner/sanitizer. Apparently it takes very little chlorine for the phenols to bind and produce a terrible band-aid flavor. I tried to convince myself it wasn't so bad tasting and maybe I could just suffer through it, but my brain basically told me to "shove off, it wasn't that easy to manipulate". Switched to star-san myself now based on the numerous recommendations--so far so good.
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