Cleaning Grubby Bottles

Hi, all.

After two moves and almost year off of brewing, I'm getting ready to bottle again. Unfortunately, I discovered while sorting through my bottles that a lot of them had gotten rather grubby (on both the insides and outsides) from the moves and storage, and possibly from my new roommates handling them with greasy hands.

If they were anything but beer bottles, I'd just wash them inside and out with soap. Unfortunately, that's not an option.

What's the best way to get that off without killing all head retention?

OxiClean may help - its two ingredients are hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and sodium carbonate (Na2CO3). Hydrogen peroxide won't won't help with the grubby but should dislodge any gunk, and after some research I find that sodium carbonate can be used to remove grease or oil stains. Anyone used OxiClean on grubby bottles (specifically, oily grubby) before? Has it worked?

If OxiClean, what mix ratio do you use? How long do you soak them for? If something else, what and for how long?

Yep, I clean all my bottles with it. I usually put some directly in the bottle (a scoop to about 4-6 bottles depending on soil amount) fill with HOT water and set in my bathtub. You can plug the tub and let water run between bottles since the end goal will be to let the bottles soak in hot water for a couple hours. If they are REALLY bad, or have labels that need to be removed, boil water in your kettle and top off tub water to bring temp back up 10-15 min before you begin rinsing. One at a time you can now remove any labels (razor blade and a scrub pad helps on those hard to remove labels), and rinse inside and out (fill bottle about 1/4 full and shake a couple times with thumb over hole) at least 3 times to ensure no residue remains. I've had some pretty nasty "donated" bottles, and all have come out sparkling using this method.

I don't know why you can't use soap like you have claimed. I use it, just make sure it's rinsed all off. It's not really a problem.

It's not that you "can't" use soap, its just more difficult to rinse fully especially out of bottles.

Good soak in Oxyclean and this http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_56_151&products_id=906 work wonders

BrewerBear said:

Good soak in Oxyclean and this http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_56_151&products_id=906 work wonders

Click to expand...

I hadn't seen the double..... very cool!

I really like it plus you can use it for carboys

Rope tub + 2 scoops Oxiclean + Hot Water (10-15 gal) + 24-48 hours will get em clean. If you have real stubborn stuff and you wanted to go just the soak route, do another soak with Starsan.