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deranged_hermit

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hi all... i am preparing to brew my first batch of beer with an 'Irish Red Ale' kit, made by Midwest Supplies. i have a homebrewing book (for dummies) and have lurked on these forums for a month now learning about how to brew. i have a few questions before i start my first batch. i plan on using Clorox Bleach (unscented) as my sanitizer. and i have read that i should only use 2 oz. for every 5 gallons to sanitize with. the bottle says to use 3/4 cup for every gallon. how much would you all suggest i use to sanitize my equipment. i'd appreciate any procedure tips as well... ie time requirements, locations, and temperatures.

my second question concerns bottling. i went to my local liquor store and asked if they have any returnable bottles, or if he knew of any brewers that use them (so i could buy the beer and reuse the bottles). he said they didn't have any and that the major breweries dont use returnables anymore. does anyone know what brands i CAN buy and reuse instead of ordering $25 worth of bottles?

finally, i have a question regarding the 3-piece airlock. do i fill the airlock with water before using? up to the holes on the removeable inner plastic cup? also, do i keep the cap on? there are several tiny pin-holes on the cap that i'm guessing is to allow CO2 to escape while keeping bacteria and dust out of the airlock.

thanks in advance!
 
First of all, welcome.
It's nice to see another person from Indiana on here. There's not too many of us. I'll try to answer your ?'s the best that I can, although I'm pretty new myself. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong.

#1 - The 2oz of bleach sounds more reasonable than the 3/4 cup per gallon :eek: (although I've never used bleach myself and I'm not sure what the correct ratio would be). I use Iodophor myself, and you'll probably find that most people around here will tell you that it is much easier to use a no rinse. It's nice to have a bucket full of it while you are brewing, so you can just throw the stuff in and remove when needed.

#2 - Pretty much any beer bottle that is not a screw off top can be used for bottling. I believe most of the non-macro brews should fit the bill here. I've bought a few Grolsch myself for the great swing-top bottles.

#3 - You'll want to fill the air-lock about halfway full (there should be a line on the airlock about halfway up) then put the plastic cap on top and you're good to go. The cap lets the air escape and keeps the plastic cup from getting too high and letting air in. Makes for a beautiful sound during a good strong fermentation.

Hope this helps you out a little.
 
deranged_hermit said:
hi all... i am preparing to brew my first batch of beer with an 'Irish Red Ale' kit, made by Midwest Supplies. i have a homebrewing book (for dummies) and have lurked on these forums for a month now learning about how to brew. i have a few questions before i start my first batch. i plan on using Clorox Bleach (unscented) as my sanitizer. and i have read that i should only use 2 oz. for every 5 gallons to sanitize with. the bottle says to use 3/4 cup for every gallon. how much would you all suggest i use to sanitize my equipment. i'd appreciate any procedure tips as well... ie time requirements, locations, and temperatures.

my second question concerns bottling. i went to my local liquor store and asked if they have any returnable bottles, or if he knew of any brewers that use them (so i could buy the beer and reuse the bottles). he said they didn't have any and that the major breweries dont use returnables anymore. does anyone know what brands i CAN buy and reuse instead of ordering $25 worth of bottles?

finally, i have a question regarding the 3-piece airlock. do i fill the airlock with water before using? up to the holes on the removeable inner plastic cup? also, do i keep the cap on? there are several tiny pin-holes on the cap that i'm guessing is to allow CO2 to escape while keeping bacteria and dust out of the airlock.

thanks in advance!
1) If you're going to use bleach for sanitizing, the proper no-rinse dilution is 2 tsp. per 5 gallons. If you use any more than this you'll have to rinse well, which IMHO defeats the purpose of sanitation.

2) A lot of micro-brews, and most european brews, still come in re-usable bottles. New Belgium and Dogfish Head come to mind. That said, if you get a bench capper you can even re-use twist offs.

3) With a three piece airlock, just add enough water to float the inner cylinder.
 
deranged_hermit said:
hi all... i am preparing to brew my first batch of beer with an 'Irish Red Ale' kit, made by Midwest Supplies. i have a homebrewing book (for dummies) and have lurked on these forums for a month now learning about how to brew. i have a few questions before i start my first batch. i plan on using Clorox Bleach (unscented) as my sanitizer. and i have read that i should only use 2 oz. for every 5 gallons to sanitize with. the bottle says to use 3/4 cup for every gallon. how much would you all suggest i use to sanitize my equipment. i'd appreciate any procedure tips as well... ie time requirements, locations, and temperatures.

my second question concerns bottling. i went to my local liquor store and asked if they have any returnable bottles, or if he knew of any brewers that use them (so i could buy the beer and reuse the bottles). he said they didn't have any and that the major breweries dont use returnables anymore. does anyone know what brands i CAN buy and reuse instead of ordering $25 worth of bottles?

finally, i have a question regarding the 3-piece airlock. do i fill the airlock with water before using? up to the holes on the removeable inner plastic cup? also, do i keep the cap on? there are several tiny pin-holes on the cap that i'm guessing is to allow CO2 to escape while keeping bacteria and dust out of the airlock.

thanks in advance!

glad you found us and welcome to the wonderful world of fermentables! :D

1. i don't use bleach as a sanitizer, but many do. i'd go with what El Pistolero said. you can do a search for bleach on the forum and several heated posts will pop up....or look into some no-rinse sanitizers like StarSan or Iodaphor. all homebrew shops will carry them, or check www.northernbrewer.com, www.morebeer.com, www.austinhomebrew.com.
2. Sam Adams beer, Bass Ale, Pete's Wicked Ale's come to mind for pop tops. most all domestic micro brews are pop tops. hit friends up that drink good beer for their empties. buy some micro or import brews to sample while your 1st batch ferments. we call it research :drunk: and re-use those bottles for the homebrew.

3. most air locks have a fill line about half way up the side ofthe lock. insert the air lock, fill to the line, drop in the float and pop the cap on. if you get an active ferment w/out the cap on, that float could shhhooooottt right out.

good luck and keep us posted!
 
Greetings and welcome to the boards!

If you use bleach, I'd go with the 2oz/gal, let it 'soak', and then rinse with boiled & cooled water. If you can get your hands on it, I'd recommend either iodopher or starsan, but that's more for ease of use.
 
What they said! Yes, as for bottles, here in the midwest, it's nearly impossible to find returnables anymore. Here's a short list of some other brands to look for that do not have screw tops, can be used over and over again and are generally available in the Midwest at larger stores. And they all make good beer! Plus, in some cases, you'll be supporting regional Micros!:

Three Floyds
Great Lakes
New Holland
Two Brothers
Left Hand
Rogue Brewing
 
not gonna quote the original post cuz just about everyone else has :cross:

Bleach - the topic here may start a small war but I DO use bleach. I use about a "glug" to a bathtub full of HOT water then let the bottles soak for the day. I then rinse with HOT water as I take them out and just b4 I bottle. whenI say HOT water I mean HOT. I have my water heater set to about 165ish.

Bottles - if you can find a place that sells the old 24 bottle cases in the heavy cardboard boxes with the fold over tops you can use those. You may have to do a bit of running around but I buy cases of empties here for $1.20. (try a old timer bar) For brown bottles look for brands like Old Style, Pabst, Blatz, Leinnies, etc. If ya plan on keeping your beer in the dark anyway and not under a giant light or in the open sun light Miller products come in clear bottles. Brown and clear bottles discussions could also start a war here. Personally I use both. Brown bottles do protect your beer from the light better wich avoids sunky beer, but the only time my bottles see the light of day is moving from my fridge to the glass I pour them into. The rest of the time they are in my basement under the stairs behind a door in cases, or in the fridge.

3 piece air lock - like they said just enuff to float the cup. I have a couple of single piece air locks and 3 piece and am parital to the singles, but thats just cuz I am wierd and like the shape better
 
Pumbaa said:
not gonna quote the original post cuz just about everyone else has

Bleach -
Same here and no plans to change. I use hot, but not too hot water - about what you're advocating here. Beach can send off dangerous fumes if the water is too hot and your ventilation is poor.

Pumbaa said:
Bottles - if you can find a place that sells the old 24 bottle cases in the heavy cardboard boxes with the fold over tops you can use those.

Those are exactly the ones that used to be plentiful here in the Midwest, but no longer. Nobody carries them because (as the guy at a large liquor store told me recently when I went looking for them) "nobody wants to hassle wth them."

I remember in college we used to buy 16 oz. returnable Stroh's pop-top bottles when they were on sale. Man, those would be great for homebrew nowadays!
 
- about what you're advocating here. Beach can send off dangerous fumes if the water is too hot and your ventilation is poor.

Yeah it can but the amount we are talking about here I dont think would really be that big of an issue. Even if you are taking a HUGE crap (I'm talking like a whole novel kinda crap) and have the place sealed up air tight, I think the most that would happen is you MAY get a bit of a sore throat or some upper airway irritation. Not really sure how much my bathtub holds but for a whole bathtub I doubt the "glug" of bleach I use is much more then 1 cup worth, the same amount you may use for your laundry.

Then again any chemical we may use as a cleaner in the wrong proportion may give off fumes in a poorly ventalated area . . . turn on the bathroom fan or crack a window if you are really concerned about it. In my 10 years as a firefighter/paramedic I have only been on one 911 call for a issue like this and it was for some nut who was a asthmatic, litterally was cleaning every surface in a upper flat with bleach from a spray bottle had the heat cranked up to about 90f and all the windows sealed with plastic film. In the same situation she put herself in I think Dove soap would have got to me. I will say it was a very clean place. Cleanest I have ever seen in the inner city.

Bottle wise - maybe it's a Milwaukee thing but they are still all over here, not at the frachise grocery stores but all most of the bigger liquere stores. Hell if ya need some pop on up, we'll head over grab ya a dozen cases then toss a few back :)
 
Pumbaa said:
Bleach - the topic here may start a small war but I DO use bleach. I use about a "glug" to a bathtub full of HOT water then let the bottles soak for the day...
A little known fact...bleach actually works better in cold water. The correct amount is 2 tablespoons for 5 gals water.

I've used bleach, hell, I've used all the cleansers and sanitizers. I have a collection of them. I don't know which one I prefer over the other.
 
homebrewer_99 said:
A little known fact...bleach actually works better in cold water. The correct amount is 2 tablespoons for 5 gals water.

I've used bleach, hell, I've used all the cleansers and sanitizers. I have a collection of them. I don't know which one I prefer over the other.

you've had 2 many hefe's :drunk:
 
Two tablespoons per 5 gallon cool water is the correct amount. More is not better with most sanitizers and 3/4 cup per gallon is just asking for a chemical burn.
Rinsing with very hot water is also correct. You do not want residual chlorine in your brew bottle.
I am not an experienced brewer but am a licensed water treatment facility operator and have training it the field of water disinfection and sanitization.
I personally use One Step which is no rinse because I am more lazy than thrifty.
As to bottles, I know here in Austin TX, you can go to the recycle center and get all the bottles you want for free. Here again, I know people that do, I am too lazy because Austin Homebrew Supply is a few blocks from where I live. :)
Come to think of it. The gas of going to the recycle center several times would probably not save me too much these days.:eek:
 
I forget that we are lucky in states with returnable deposits. I just went to my local liquor store the other day and asked for pop-top returnables, left with 24 Bell's bottles for $2.40 (the 0.10 deposit for the return). That is one nice thing about being in Michigan I suppose!
 
clayof2day said:
I forget that we are lucky in states with returnable deposits. I just went to my local liquor store the other day and asked for pop-top returnables, left with 24 Bell's bottles for $2.40 (the 0.10 deposit for the return). That is one nice thing about being in Michigan I suppose!

thanks all for the tips. i ended up using 2 oz. for every five gallons of water. let them soak for a half hour, then air dry. i actually brewed my first batch of beer tonight, and now i have 2 weeks to collect and sanitize enough bottles for 5 gallons (54 bottles if i read correctly? too lazy for this engineer to do the math).

and to clayof2day... i asked a few local stores down here in Indiana if they had any returnables and he said no, and prolly nobody would. i'm originally from grand rapids, MI and worked a couple summer jobs with the local Budweiser distributor. i went all over town stocking shelves and making displays. i saw hundreds upon thousands of bottles at some of these liquor stores, even the small stores. maybe a trip home for food and beer bottles is in store this weekend. haha.
 
Just make sure its not a place with an automatic return machine, because the bottles will smash. Usually the smaller stores or liquor stores will have a stash
 
deranged_hermit said:
thanks all for the tips. i ended up using 2 oz. for every five gallons of water. let them soak for a half hour, then air dry.
You are going to rinse those bottle before using them, right?
 
deranged_hermit said:
my second question concerns bottling. i went to my local liquor store and asked if they have any returnable bottles, or if he knew of any brewers that use them (so i could buy the beer and reuse the bottles). he said they didn't have any and that the major breweries dont use returnables anymore. does anyone know what brands i CAN buy and reuse instead of ordering $25 worth of bottles?

Incidentally, your local liquor store was pretty off. The big beer companies are probably the only ones that can efficently handle returnables on a scale large enough not to kill teh bottom line. At most decent sized Wisconsin liquor stores you can get various flavors of Miller, Busche, Budweiser and Coors in cases of returnables. Heck, I've even been to some bars that serve their beer in returnables.
 
i got my little 4 fl. oz bottle of BTF Iodophor Sanitizer. What is the correct dilution ratio for a 5 gallon bucket? i thought i read before that it was 2 cap fulls. but now i cant find where that was written. how do i sanitize bottles in it? how long? does the cleaning/sanitizing process when using Iodophor ruin beer labels? or should i be ripping them off and scrubbing the bottles clean?

finally, i am having a lot of problems finding pop-top bottles. before i call some places, does anyone think that smaller microbreweries would be willing to sell any of their stock of bottles? the reason why i'm freaking out is because i have a batch that is now ready to bottle, and i only have 24 12 oz bottles. if worse comes to worse, i will have to kindly ask my friends to fork out the extra money for import beer this weekend and get them that way.
 
DeRoux's Broux said:
sometimes the local will sell them. try these:
http://store.yahoo.com/wineartindiana/ezcapbeerbot.html

thank you for the link, but i just cant make myself spend $40 for enough bottles for a batch of beer when i know that i can drive 4 hours to michigan and get bottles for 10 cents a piece. i just wont spend that kind of money onine when an alternative is so close.
 
deranged_hermit said:
thank you for the link, but i just cant make myself spend $40 for enough bottles for a batch of beer when i know that i can drive 4 hours to michigan and get bottles for 10 cents a piece. i just wont spend that kind of money onine when an alternative is so close.

didn't know how desperate you we're.....
 
DeRoux's Broux said:
didn't know how desperate you we're.....
i'm not too desperate, but i am cheap. just anxious to get this beer in their bottles and ready to enjoy.

do you have any response to my Iodophor questions? that is my main concern. thanks!
 
I mix the BTF at 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of water. The color should be light amber. Are there no recycling places in your area?
 
I missed the other questions. Soak time for BTF is 2 minutes and I clean the bottles and remove the labels. On bottling day I sanitize them and turn them upside down in the top dishwasher rack and let them drain a bit before use.
 
Blender said:
I missed the other questions. Soak time for BTF is 2 minutes and I clean the bottles and remove the labels. On bottling day I sanitize them and turn them upside down in the top dishwasher rack and let them drain a bit before use.
how necessary is it to remove the labels? some of these labels are very frustrating to scrap off? any suggestions on easy label-removing-methods?

and no, i called pretty much every place i could think of around the area, and nobody carries returnable glass bottles. the one place i got a bit of a lead was a nice bar downtown that specializes in imorts (draft and bottled). i guess they cant save bottles for me, because they are tight on space, but said i can gargage pick for the bottles (and that is definitely being desperate).
 
Some labels are harder to remove than others. I soak them in brewers wash and if they don't come off easily I scrape them off with a plastic knife and finish it with a green scrub pad. I have read that TSP will work but never tried it. I suppose that it is not absolutely necessary though.
 
Not sure what "brewers wash" is, but soaking in washing soda (on the shelf with the laundry detergents at the supermarket) is great for taking labels off bottles.
 
Hell .......I might as well my two sense....
I've used bleach for all of my batches then I started getting paranoid once I started reading all the opinions here, so I sxwitched to BTK....just used it today, A lot easier to use instead of the bleach rinsing.
Just go and buy some bottles, way easier!!!!
 
i've used bleach since i first started brewing and i use 1/4 of bleach to 6and 1/2 gallons of water. i do this with my primary before fermintation and for bottling i do that same with my bottling bucket. then i just fill the bottles from the botting bucket. 3 rinses with hot water and i've never had a problem or any off flavors. i do plan on switching to onestep or another no rinse once i'm back in the good 'ol us of a, but for now i'll use bleach to kill the nasties
 
I am only using bleach for the heavy cleanings, now. I fill the buckets/carboys with warm water and bleach AFTER use, and let them set for a couple days. I am using StarSan as a no rinse sanitizer, and it has been great so far. I make up a spray bottle of it. Everything gets washed and rinsesd, then rinsed with boiled water. Anything that needs to be sanitized gets hosed down prior to use with starsan, and I am good to go.
 
hey all, thanks for the replies to my original quesitons. but i sorta updated my problem with a follow up quesiton about the iodophor (and recieved answers). but thanks anyways!
 
The correct dilution is two bottle caps per 5 gal of water. ( well that is what I use and it works out great.)
Now for label removal, I read here in the forums that Oxyclean ( it can be bought in discount stores under a variety of names, I got a large bucket for about $5.00) I use two to three scoops in a washbasin full of warm water and in about 30 min or so the labels slide off pretty good. I have seen some that didn't want to let go but most are a breeze. It also helps to clean the bottels of residue from what was in there the first time. I still use a brush though and rinse well. then sanitize. Hope this helps
 
Truble said:
I am only using bleach for the heavy cleanings, now. I fill the buckets/carboys with warm water and bleach AFTER use, and let them set for a couple days. I am using StarSan as a no rinse sanitizer, and it has been great so far. I make up a spray bottle of it. Everything gets washed and rinsesd, then rinsed with boiled water. Anything that needs to be sanitized gets hosed down prior to use with starsan, and I am good to go.
Why rinse with boiled water if you are going to store your stuff after you clean it? Just clean, rinse with regular water, then sanitize with StarSan before the next use.

Or did I read your post wrong?
 
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