Cleaning beer bottles

I have a drawn out but rather effortless procedure.

First used labeled nasty crusted bottles soak overnight in a 10 gallon tub of oxyclean(sunpower is half the price and works the same). The next morning the labels and crud basically fall out.

Next The bottles get rinsed, shook, dumped and loaded in the dishwasher with all the other dirty dishes.

Then Semi cleaned bottles get stored in empty beer cases.

Bottling day. Early morning two cases of bottles go into the dishwasher on a high heat sanitize cycle. Once done the bottles get a starsan rinse on the bottle tree vinator(sp??) and then they get filled.

This may sound like a pita but the only thing that sucks is starting with fresh labeled bottles. Normally after I drink a homebrew the bottle gets rinsed and tossed in the dishwasher like any other dirty dish. Then goes into the long term storage cases. I've never had to use my bottle brush and find the whole process so easy that I have no intentions or desires to complicate things with kegging. Once you get the process down it's really pretty effortless.

first i cover my arms in lotion, then i take out the pure bleach...

you gotta use the lotion for that HEAD RETENTION

If they have any solid gunk in them you'll probably be better with a brush of some sort. If not then a long soak with sanitizer will do fine. But I always rinse after use, otherwise you'll end up with mould and other unpleasant things the next time you use them.

Some great advice and awesome ideas. I guess my way is a bit over kill *cough* I don't have OCD *cough* but I was wanting to get one of those high presure hot steam sprayer I've seen at restaurants for cleaning the inside of bottles instead of a rinsing and shaking agressively by hand with hot hot water.

Any advice on good ones, and what is it called? (too many "water thingies" on google)

I always thoroughly rinse out my bottles after pouring out the beer, but I've found there is a sort of powdery residue in mine that only comes off with using a bottle brush. And even still, it's almost impossible to get it all off. I've even done the bottle brush on the drill and it does get of most of the residue, but I still find some on there.

Anyone else get this really hard to remove powdery residue on their bottles? Would a soak in PBW or oxyclean help? Any other ideas?

I bought 2 cases of used Grolsch bottles on Craigslist,,,,,they all looked clean but I decided I had to ensure they where clean to my satisfaction. I cleaned them by putting them in my 9 gallon brew pot filled with plain water and boiled them for about 10 mins. I was kinda amazed as how much "brown" stuff was in the water. Remember back in the day when your mother boiled your baby bottles?

Interesting. Kind of a PITA, but considering all the manual techniques I've been doing, maybe not.

I always rinse out the bottles once they are poured out. The day before I'm going to bottle I clean the bottles with PBW and then put them thru the dishwasher. Once I'm going to bottle I rinse them with StarSan. Never had a problem doing it this way.

So far my process has been to pour homebrew into a glass and then rinse, partially fill, shake, rinse, repeat and then put the bottle directly into the dishwasher. After it's run through the dishwasher, i'll visibly check for any residue in the bottle, then i'll store it until the next bottling day. Before bottling, it'll get hit with the sanitizer.

I got 4 cases of used bottles from my buddy and all of them were dirty and gunky on the inside. That's the only time I think i'll ever need to use my bottle brush..

after using starsan on bottling day how important is draining? I mean just put in a drying rack until beer enters is that good enough? I suppose sanitizing the drying rack is important too?

I drain them once and then set them down. Then I drain them once again right before filling. Maybe another half an ounce comes out. Probably not necessary, but that's what I do.

I started a new routine for cleaning bottles. I used to just rinse them right after pouring and let them dry. But I found that many bottles weren't coming that clean. There was a powdery looking residue in there.

So now I started rinsing them, but then putting a few flecks of oxyclean in them, filling and shaking. I then let them sit overnight and then rinse completely. This seems to clean them out much better.

Revey's Tips: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/

My system:
1-Drink store bought beer and rinse after drinking
2-Wait till I have 12 bottles empty
3-Place 12 bottles in 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of OxyClean
4-Leave them there while drinking another 12 bottles and repeat
5-Lables come off in a week or so sometimes faster, but I wait the 12 bottle time whatever that is.
6-Rinse the bottles and store upside down to drain dry
7-Put the bottles in 6 pack holder and place in a covered plactic box. Mine can hold 1 1/2 cases of emptys.
8-On bottling day bring needed bottles to kitchen and soak in StarSan for a few mintues.
9-Stack bottles on the lower rack of dish washer after spraying the heck out of the washer w/StarSan
10-Place bottling bucket on top of dishwasher and fill.
11-Cap w/caps that have been soaked in Star San.
12-Wait 3 weeks and enjoy my latest brew.

C-Rider, I really like your idea of having the bottles in the lower rack of the dishwasher with the bucket on top!! Sounds easier than the way I have been doing it! I'll try it!!

C-Rider said:

Revey's Tips: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/

My system:
1-Drink store bought beer and rinse after drinking
2-Wait till I have 12 bottles empty
3-Place 12 bottles in 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of OxyClean
4-Leave them there while drinking another 12 bottles and repeat
5-Lables come off in a week or so sometimes faster, but I wait the 12 bottle time whatever that is.
6-Rinse the bottles and store upside down to drain dry

Click to expand...

+1 to this method. I've been doing this and bottling isn't a chore anymore.

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What I used to do when I bottled was clean out used bottles with a hot ammonia solution in a plastic bin. This ensured all labels got removed with minimal effort and killed whatever nonsense was inside them. Then had a second bin with warm water and let them soak and finally a star san solution soak.

Note that you want to do this in a well ventilated area.

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You can give your drying rack a spray of star san. You don't have to get ALL of the star san foam out. Just drain as much as you can an then bottle. A little bit of foam in the bottle helps to keep it sanitized.

I recently stated to keep a tall glass jar next the sink with oxiclean I rinse all bottles from the sink 3 times then fill and put in the jar ( if homebrew I may take a brush to them to make sure all yeast gunk is gone). I replace as I drink more the next day, rinse outside dump out the water and put the fast rack to dry. After I get six I put plastic wrap over the top and put in a six pack carrier. Bottling day I fill and all with starsan, then dump out and put on fast rack then grab from there and fill. No problems yet... best part of this method is delabeling is now painless.

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