bottles from flood

Hi everyone,
New to brewing and new here. Started with a mr. beer as a gift 3 years ago and want to start with a 5 gallon beer. my question is I just bought 2 carboys and 100 16 oz. bottles that were in the resent flood in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. They smell like a sewer. Did I make a mistake or can I clean these to use safely?
johnthemc

You should be able to clean them up with a soak in something. You can buy some Sodium Hydroxide (lye) at the hardware store. Follow directions and wear gloves and goggles...

If it were plastic, I'd say throw it all away but since it's glass you'll be able to clean them up fine.

Clean them up and then brew an ipa, and call it Noah's arc ipa.

Thank you all.
Not familiar with PBW, is this the name brand?
john

Powdered Brewery Wash, it's great stuff. I've also had good success with oxyclean (the Target off brand stuff actually), and it's a lot cheaper. Glass bottles should clean up fine IMO

PBW is is Powdered Brewery Wash and it works awesome, most LHBS carry it. Another alternative is Oxyclean. Either way, rinse really good.

FYI - Sodium Hydroxide would be the "Nuclear Option" for cleaning these. It's nasty stuff, but it WILL remove any organics from the glass. Just don't mix too strongly or you risk losing the glass as well...

I get my bottles from the local recycling center and they are sometime not rinsed very well so at times they do smell and have mold in them, I use Oxyclean and soak them for a few days, use a bottle brush and rinse with hot water and they are fine.

I dont want to hijack, but i feel like it slightly relates and dont want to start a new thread.

I save all of my 22 oz bottles, but was wondering if i could clean wine bottles and cork them will it be ok in preserving the beer? I have a ton of wine bottles and the 750ml size is only a little bigger than a 22 oz bottle, which is fine because i will still drink it all.

Is it cheap/easy to cork them or should i just stick with capping beer bottles?

Pretty sure the carbonation will push the cork out, plus the bottles aren't usually made to withstand the pressure of carbonation. If you had cappable champagne bottles though, those would work!

But then you have to worry about the color letting too much light in and skunking your beer.

I see. Oh well i can just use 22's. Thanks for the quick reply!

There are bottles that are thicker and made for pressure. Champagne bottles, or even some of the newer large beer bottles can be corked. Some of them even accept a cap.

However, most of the beer I've seen with corks use a synthetic cork, or plastic cork. Regular cork is great for wine, but they must be kept sidewise to keep the cork from drying out. And they let in Oxygen, which is fine for most wines, but not so good for most beer.

If you use Oxyclean, make sure you get the Oxycleen Free. It doesnt have the perfumes added.

mlyday said:

If you use Oxyclean, make sure you get the Oxycleen Free. It doesnt have the perfumes added.

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If you rinse it well, I wouldn't think that the perfumes would be and issue?

CGVT said:

If you rinse it well, I wouldn't think that the perfumes would be and issue?

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The question is why risk it. Its the same price. For glass its probably not as much of an issue as it would be for plastic bottles or buckets.

If you had seen some of the stuff I have cleaned out of old bottles, you would think flood water was sparkling spring water. Stuff that makes you go " AWW HELL HOW'D THAT GET IN THERE?" just be careful and take your time cleaning them. CLOSE to clean is NOT clean enough. soak...bottle brush... rinse...visually inspect. make sure there isn't even a tiny speck of gunk left in em.

Belgian bottles are their own thing. They can't be capped by either size of cap, and take a special cork. Some people use the bales and some people don't, though I would definitely be using them if I had some, but corking is more work than I need. Give me a 22oz bomber or a champagne bottle any day.

Glass==Easy to clean, non-permeable surface. Soak it good, get a scrub brush in there if you need to, then rinse in hot water, then sanitize.

Clean with PBW and brush, run thru the dishwasher and heat dry, then sanitize them. That's what I did with my first bottles that had been sitting in a basement for 10 yrs or so. All kinds of nasty stuff in there.