Presoaking bottles

My father has a friend who swears by using a Rubbermaid container and filling it with a bleach/water solution and as you finish a beer simply toss it in the container and make sure it submerges. So I have 2 questions. 1.) Have any of you ever heard of or used this method before? 2.) I have a good bit of starsan and since it is no rinse could I just do this and empty the bottles on bottling day to save time? 3.) I have just been rinsing my bottles with water and putting em in a box. Sho

Didn't mean to write "Sho" at the end. Whoops.

From what I have read so far... Disclaimer: I am a noob.

Either method bleach or star san works. However, star san is the easier, faster and less chance of ruining clothes.

I star san'ed my first batch of stuff and had no problems. I like star over bleach because star is an acid based sanitizer. It is fast and easy.

Good luck deciding which is best for you.

I should have added you can do the same thing with star san. I rinse mine out let them dry then I am going to soak bottles for an hour the day before bottling my first batch I a couple weeks.

The only place I have to store empties is my garage and its way to cold out to soak them there.

Seems like an unnecessary step. I just rinse my bottles after pouring a beer. Then when bottling day rolls around, I scrub them and sanitize with StarSan.

The only reason I am considering it is that my first batch I had a few bugs stick in the bottles. The box fixed that. But also I have gotten a good number of bottles from my friends which may or may not have been rinsed. I figured perhaps a presoak would loosen up whatever gunk may be in the bottles and ensure they are 100% clean on bottling day

Get some PBW and soak the dirty bottles in that.

The problem with starsan is that in theory it will lose its sanitising effect over time. You would be better to PBW the bottles then rinse and dump into starsan at the start of your brew day. If you manage to get infected beer after that process then there is something wrong with the rest of your brewing technique.

I use a chlorinated cleaner and soak bottles for a couple weeks until I get to them sometimes. I just rinsed out a batch for tomorrow. It works well for general cleaning and label removal plus it helps with time management, they can sit and wait for me. I recommend that you take them out before bottling day and rinse them inside and out well. If feel you need to sanitize them again on bottling day then do so then.

I also rinse with water after drinking. Star san the day of bottling. Never an issue.

monsterbrewerMa said:

I also rinse with water after drinking. Star san the day of bottling. Never an issue.

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Agreed, same here. If you're rinsing right after drinking, there's no need to ever soak or scrub, just a quick star san dunk (or spray). If you want to remove the labels an overnight soak in oxyclean is great, and if they're dirty bottles from a recycling center or wherever, you probably want to scrub after the oxy soak.