anyone use bottling bucket to soak bottles beforehand

I am getting ready to bottle this weekend. I have the beer kit with the 2 large 6 gallon plastic buckets, one for the fermenter and one with a spigot on the bottom for bottling.

When I brewed up my beer 2 weeks ago I cleaned the bottling bucket with the c brite I was using for the rest of the equipment. Now that it is time to bottle I was thinking of rinsing my bottles with the bottle rinser (attached to faucet) then soak the racking cane, tubes, bottle caps and bottles in a solution of iodophor (12.5)in the bottling bucket. Once all the bottles have soaked for 2 minutes I would take them out, put them on the dishwasher rack and repeat until all bottles are clean. then all I would have to do is take out the caps, racking cane, and tubes then swish the iodophor solution around in the bucket for a minute then drain out the spigot.

I haven't read anyone using the bottling bucket to soak the equipment in, is there a downside to what I described above?

It's what I did on batch#1. For batch#2 I soaked the primary bucket then emptied into a Rubbermaid container which meant I could get all my kit in plus more bottles at once.

The only thing I see "wrong" with your idea is you need to put all the sanitized "stuff" somewhere when you empty the bucket. Ditching the solution to a second container means you can use the Iodophor a little longer 'til you're done bottling. What if you drop something during bottling and you already ditched the Iodophor?

good point, when I drain it I will fill one half of my kitchen sink with the solution and drain the rest down the other half

2 other things to consider - iodine will stain your plastic bucket (or so I'm told). Also, plastic scratches easily, so using it to soak your bottles could lead to sanitary issues down the road. Course I'm just learning also, so take it for what it's worth...

I sanitize my bottles in my bottling bucket using Star San and have been doing so for almost 20 batches. Haven't had any problems so far. I always inspect the bucket before hand for any mold, scratches, etc.

Honestly it is really not a good idea to use a bucket that will be touching your beer as a cleaning/sanitizing bucket, there is a risk that you could scratch it...for example having a bottle break or just having the rough notches on the bottom of the bottles scratch the plastic surface....scratches could be a breeding ground for infections, even shallow scratches...and as it says on the starsan bottles, the sanitized area must be free of food/beer particles. So even your sanitizer may not be good enough to sanitize the bucket before hand.


I have two old soysauce buckets from the chinese resteraunt that are my cleaning/sanitizing buckets, or just get one or 2 cheap ones from homedepot.
I jam them with bottles, use them to haul my brewing tools into my kitchen, haul my grain, etc...without worrying about marring/scoring the surface of my bottling bucket or fermentors.

like these.

I agree with Revvy on this one (not that I ever disagree ... you should not use a fermenter as a bucket to sanitize your bottles. However I would really suggest you eventually invest in a bottle tree with a sanitizer top. They don't cost much and I got by for a decade without one but when I finally broke down and got it... it made a big difference in the speed of my bottling.

JVD_X said:

///However I would really suggest you eventually invest in a bottle tree with a sanitizer top. They don't cost much and I got by for a decade without one but when I finally broke down and got it... it made a big difference in the speed of my bottling.

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+1 on this...I don't have the tree, but I do have the vinator. It saves a lot of time, and sanitizer as well....





I do still bang up my "slopbuckets" for other things...but don't worry about scratching anything that will be hold beer for length of time.

good points guys, see this is why I posted the question. Something that sounded like a no brainer to me turns out not to be a very good idea.....glad I asked.

Just to play Devil's Advocate here, I don't see a problem. You have to sanitize that bottling bucket and, certainly, that spigot. If your bottles already are clean, and you aren't jamming your gear into the bucket, your method is a great way to save time and sanitizer.


TL

I use my bathtub to sanatize bottles in. Works great

God do I hate removing labels

I never had enough room in the bottling bucket to sanitize all my bottles. Small batches?

I fill my bottles from the bottling bucket and let them sit, dump them back in and repeat till all my bottles are done. I use star san so I just fill the bottle till the foam starts to come out and quit. No worries about the interior of my bucket that way and the spigot gets a good sanitizing also.

I use my bottling bucket to sanitize racking canes and such and I do end up getting scratches somehow so what Revvy says is true. I'm not too worried about small scratches in my bottling bucket but I will have to replace it soon. (I've had it for like 3 years)

Revvy said:

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OOOH.... I want one of those!!

I'm a rookie, but so far cleaning bottles is the only bad thing about home brewing! :cross:

On another note... my wife helps me with bottling and when we were using the bucket method the star-san sanitizer would dry her hands out really bad. She wasn't going to help anymore because of this, so that is what prompted me getting the bottle tree with sanitizer attachment.

BEER_4_BREAKFAST said:

I'm a rookie, but so far cleaning bottles is the only bad thing about home brewing! :cross:

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I will say getting the labels off is probably the worst part but what I found that works great is I get a big old cooler and fill it about half way with warm water and oxyclean...let them sit in there for an hour or so and the labels melt right off the bottle. If it is a real stubborn label I scrape the label up a little with a knife then resoak, this lets more of the solution directly work on the glue.

I don't put my own labels on my homebrews because I just don't want to peel them off again!

just toss the bottles and go get a kegging system!

sorry, couldn't help myself.

SenorWanderer said:

just toss the bottles and go get a kegging system!

sorry, couldn't help myself.

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x 10000

I LOVE my kegerator. I would NEVER, I repeat NEVER go back to bottles for my house.

BUT bottling is a necessity when distributing your bubbly beverages to your friends

I've used my bottling bucket to soak bottles in a StarSan solution before. Not too worried about scratching it up, bottles don't really have sharp edges. Have not had any problems. I generally use my 36 quart boil pot though, can fit more bottles in it.

rhody said:

I will say getting the labels off is probably the worst part but what I found that works great is I get a big old cooler and fill it about half way with warm water and oxyclean...let them sit in there for an hour or so and the labels melt right off the bottle. If it is a real stubborn label I scrape the label up a little with a knife then resoak, this lets more of the solution directly work on the glue.

I don't put my own labels on my homebrews because I just don't want to peel them off again!

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I use a butter knife to push the soggy label off, and then a few pinches of cheap table salt to scrape the gooey adhesive off. I can get most bottles clean in record time, and glass is resilient enough to be clean without scratching.

+1 on the butter knife and I have (2) 4 gallon frosting buckets I use for soaking. I drilled a hole in one and put in a bottling bucket spigot. That way I can clean hoses and siphons.

here's what i usually do on bottling day .... remove the top tray of my dish washer, and put the bottles on the bottom tray so they're all standing upside down .... run a full wash/dry cycle and then run another dry cycle ... the bottles get nice and hot and sanitized, let them cool ... remove a few, fill and cap them, do a few more.

On bottling day I put all my bottles in a huge rubbermaid container (which I store all my homebrew stuff in normally). I put a whole batch full of bottles in, fill with required amount of bleach and water, wait a 1/2 hour and all is done! of course I rinse the container when done. No problems yet....

Nanik006 said:

here's what i usually do on bottling day .... remove the top tray of my dish washer, and put the bottles on the bottom tray so they're all standing upside down .... run a full wash/dry cycle and then run another dry cycle ... the bottles get nice and hot and sanitized, let them cool ... remove a few, fill and cap them, do a few more.

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I understood it was a bad idea to get bottles too hot. Doesn't it weaken the glass?