Santising bottles

[seino]

Back again with more rookie questions.

I think my first extract brew is ready for bottling, but my youtubing and googling is giving me mixed messages on how best to sanitise my bottles.

Notes for reference:
- I'm using brand new flip-top bottles bought online, so while a little dusty, they don't have any beer residue or crud in them, and no labels to remove.
- I don't (yet) have a bottle tree or any such equipment - I had planned to use my dishwasher as a 'tree'.
- All the santising solution I have requires rinsing (I'll get Starsan next time, but want to work with what I have for now).

I've seen videos where people just soak the bottles in the sanitising solution and then rinse with cold tap water - but tap water isn't sterile so that doesn't make much sense to me.

I've also read plenty of people say you can give them a good clean with a bottle brush, rinse, and then put into a dishwasher face-down on the highest heat, then let them cool and go straight into bottling.

If the dishwasher isn't a solution, could I soak and scrub the bottles with sanitising solution, and then rinse with pre-boiled water?

Any suggestions welcome! Eager to get bottling but worried about spoiling my first batch.

Cheers all. Hope you're enjoying the sun.

-S

[CH]

A rise with water to remove the spiders and a shake with some starsan solution and drain on clean prongs of dishwasher.

Dishwashers do not clean crud out of Bottles.
If they are cruddy 1/2 teaspoon full of Lidl w5 and hot water to activate then fill to top.
Then big rinse and starsan for sanitation.

[DEMPSEY]

starsan is a no rinse sanitizer and if you don't have any you can make up a homemade version. using plain bleach and white vinegar and clean water. DO NOT ADD THE VINEGAR AND BLEACH TOGETHER FIRST. they will create a gas that will kill you Immediately. add 20 ml of BLEACH to 20 liters of water and then add 20 ml of vinegar. The target is to lower the PH so that it kills all bugs on contact.

[Water_Wolf]

Rather than trying to mix your own chemicals, you can just go down to your local shop and get some Milton or the Aldi / Lidl own brand equivalent in the baby section. The liquid variety is better. It's a no rinse sanitiser that just requires you to let things drip dry. You can use it on anything except stainless steel vessels as it will corrode them after repeated use.

[Snuff]

I second Dempsey with the home made no-rinse sanitiser, been using this method for years.
However, you want 30ml of thin bleach and 30ml of white vinegar to 20l water.

[seino]

Cheers guys. Will probably try running the scrubbed bottles through the dishwasher (for heat sterilisation purposes), give them a quick soak in Milton, then drain on dishwasher rack before bottling.

Bleach + Water + Vinegar is a great homemade option. I'll give this a try in the future.

[CH]

God gave us homebrewers starsan for a reason.

[seino]

Just an update, I went ahead with rinsing the bottles, running them through the dishwasher on 60C heat (no detergent), soaking the bottles and equipment in Aldi brand non-rinse sanitiser (cheers Wolf, handy local solution), then drip-drying in the dishwasher before bottling.

Will definitely get some Starsan with my next online order.

Had a quick taste of the wort before bottling and quite pleased with the results so far. Looking forward to popping the lid on one in a couple of weeks!

Thanks again guys.

[CH]

Heads up anybody near a b&q, 1/2 Litre misters a Euro, 1litre €1.25.
Handy for keeping everything sanitised post boil. I went for the 1/2 litre as I usually make up some for every brew.

[DEMPSEY]

when you bottle your beers use a clear soft drink bottle as 1 of the bottles. you can use that one as a test bottle as the carbonation builds up the bottle will get harder to squeeze and being clear you can see if they are clearing well.

[DEMPSEY]

the vinegar /bleech thing is dependant on how hard the water you use to mix with. The harder the water the more it will buffer against lowering the PH.

[seino]

when you bottle your beers use a clear soft drink bottle as 1 of the bottles. you can use that one as a test bottle as the carbonation builds up the bottle will get harder to squeeze and being clear you can see if they are clearing well.

That's a great tip. Next time!

[Shanna]

As someone who used the dishwasher for cleaning bottled for many years I would recommend not using it. I had numerous continuous gushers when cleaning the bottles in the dishwasher. The dishwasher itself is not a clean environment and a dirty bottle won't necessarily come out clean from the wash. I have seen bottles come out with crusty bits of dirt intact. The heat will kill surface bacteria but when you add beer in to the bottle wild yeast or bacteria in the dirt will dissolve in to your beer. I stubbornly clung to the belief that my continuous problems were not down to cleaning bottles in dishwasher despite strong evidence to the contrary.

I switched instead to hand cleaning individual bottles by adding a few grams of oxy powder in to bottle with hot water. I leave each bottle to soak for 10 minutes and then clean the bottles with a bottle brush, drain them and rinse with clean water. Finally I sanitise the bottles with starsan. This approach has proved far superior for storing beers and cider long term which is important to prevent gushers or bottle bombs. I would add the individual cleaning is more time consuming but I generally get one or two bottles in each batch that I get a big blob of dried yeast, dirt or mold being lifted off from the inside of the bottles.

Shanna

[seino]

As someone who used the dishwasher for cleaning bottled for many years I would recommend not using it. I had numerous continuous rushers when cleaning the bottles in the dishwasher. The dishwasher itself is not a clean environment and a dirty bottle won't necessarily come out clean from the wash. I have seen bottles come out with crusty bits of dirt intact. The heat will kill surface bacteria but when you add beer in to the bottle wild yeast or bacteria in the dirt will dissolve in to your beer. I stubbornly clung to the belief that my continuous problems were not down to cleaning bottles in dishwasher despite strong evidence to the contrary.

Cheers Shanna. It's hard for me to grasp just how important sanitisation is, so I plan to err on the side of caution.

In this case, as the bottles were new and unused, I rinsed them, threw them in the dishwasher on high heat, then soaked them in sanitiser. As I don't have a bottle tree, having the dishwasher heat-cleaned and soap free was necessary for draining on bottling day, so figured I may as well throw the bottles in there.

For the next batch I will definitely be scrubbing the bottles thoroughly before sanitising, and the intention is to give every bottle a good rinse immediately after pouring to prevent any crusty buildup.

All good tips anyway, appreciate it.

[Shanna]

Ah i see new bottles missed that. No harm in it being out there for anybody else reading it.

Shanna