Beer Blogging - Beer bottle washing

This is now wildly out of date and stupidly work-intensive. I've simplified my entire routine to one that actually works. I'll post more about that later. As a cutionaly tale, DO NOT FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS BELOW UNLESS YOU ARE A BONEHEAD!- N_G



So I've developed a routine for getting used bottles to the bottling bucket on brew-day.

It all starts with the old bottles. I've managed to acquire nearly 150; enough to easily store 15 gallons of beer at a time. I use mostly 12 ounce brown bottles but I do use some green bottles for darker beers. I have at least 16 750Mml champagne- style bottles (Martinelli's apple cider bottles) a few actual champagne bottles, and around 20 15 ounce Grolsch swing top bottles. I have a few 22 ounce bombers floating around as well. But mostly I am working to move everything over to the 12 ounce bottles and grolsch swing tops. Their ease of use and size are ideal; the larger bottles take up a lot of space, and for some reason my bench capper has some trouble with the martinelli bottles. Also, larger bottles make my wife a bit too curious about consumption levels.... so I like to use the 12 ouncers.

By the way, does anyone else have the same trouble with martinelli's cider bottles? They will cap, but it takes a lot of effort and the capper jams on or sticks to the bottle cap. All my other bottles are a breeze to work with. The cider bottles sure look like they should work easily but something isn't right. Any suggestions?

Anyway... on to cleaning. I take any bottle (homebrew or a newly empty commercial bottle) and use the faucet mounted jet bottle washer to power rinse with hot water. This gets things visually clean and knocks out nearly all aromas.

I then set aside the rinsed bottles until I have enough of them and I need to start the process to ge them ready for beer.

When I'm ready, I put 26 to 28 bottles upright in a large rubbermaid storage container. I then use my valved hose to fill the container to just over the tops of the bottles with room temp water. So all bottles are submerged, filled with water and standing in neat rows.

Why keep them in neat rows? - I like to keep them neat because randomly oriented bottles can smack against other bottles when retreived from the container. Broken glass in murky water is a bad outcome.

[Note: I had my first bottle cleaning accident the other day. I cut my finger pretty good, too. While using a bottle brush, I snapped the top ring off of a bottle and didn't notice until it was too late.]

Why only 26 to 28 bottles at a time? - I use smaller containers that are easier to slide, move, lift, and drain. If I used a monstrously large container to wash 50 bottles at once, moving the container would be an issue. I use two containers to get enough bottles ready for bottling day.

I then add (useing the non-scientific 'just eyeball it' method) between 1 to 2 cups of straight, unscented, cheap ammonia to the container and swirl the water with my plastic brewing spoon. Then I install the container lid and let the bottles soak for about a week. The ammonia is not a sanitzer in this instance. It is primarily to dissolve the glue that holds the labels on the bottles. And it is also the absolute easiest way to remove the Glass-Paint Marker I use to label my bottles. The glass paint is somewhat soluble in an alkaline solution (like ammonia and water) so it breaks down to the point that its easy to remove with a sponge when its time to get the bottles ready to use again. If you use the marker and don't soak in an alkali solution, I think it would take a lot of elbow grease to remove the paint marks.

A week later I come back with a dedicated brush and sponge. I lift each bottle out of the container, remove remaining labels and paint marks with the brush or sponge and then dunk the outside of the bottle in a bucket of fresh water and then use the faucet mounted bottle washer to rinse the interior. Then I put each bottle into a large rubbermiad container and add the lid. The bottles are now ready for bottling day. They stay fairly clean even though they are wet when put away. I try to do this part of the process the night before I bottle.

On bottling day, I make up about 5 gallons of star-san solution in a 10 gallon container. I then start dunking bottles in the starsan until I can't fit any more. Then I take a bottle, slowly empty it out to reduce star-san foam, add beer and cap.

With a few variations to make things go faster, It doesn't take long at all to bottle 5 gallons of beer; perhaps an hour.

This has been working for me with no major issues. I am sure the star san has a lot to do with the success of this method.

[Note: This process ended in near disaster the last time I did it. I left the bottles in the Ammonia solution for nearly a month and a half. SOMETHING precipitated into and onto all of the glass bottles. I had to vigoruosly scrub each bottle prior to get them clean. It was a pain in the behind and I'm currently rethinking my bottle cleansing system. I think I'll limit the soak time to 1 day or overnight.]

Next-up" Thermometers.