Used Beer: Washed with One Step. Still smells a little like beer.

Hi all,

Im about to bottle my first ever brew.

Its a dark ale. Been about 3 1/2 weeks.

I treid searching the forum but found nothing on this issue.
I have used beer bottles. I cleaned each one as I used it with One Step.
It still smells a little like beer in there.
I have read about beer tasting good and then going bad in bottles that were not sanatized right.

Is this OK that the bottle still has a scent of beer in it?

Thanks. Sorry if it is no big deal. But I have to check...

sounds kinda fishy to me as well..

I'm not positive.. but i think one-step is a sanitizer right? no a cleaner. you might want to soak them all in a cleaning solution of some kinda and possibly use a bottle brush to get any left overs out of there.

i'm sure someone else who has used one-step before will chime in and give you a more confident answer..

ws

One-step is technically marketed as a cleaner, NOT as a sanitizer (although it seems that's mostly due to legal hoops). I'm pretty sure it's similar to Oxyclean.

Clean 'em again, Sam, can't hurt.

Would using a little bleach be a bad thing? I dont have to bottle.
I can wait a few days just in case.

I have been cleaning them out with the bottle cleaner.

I use bleach, you just need to rinse well.

Do you have a dishwasher? You can't use that to clean them (the water can't get inside), but the heat will both help sanitize and remove any bleach residue that remains.

Thanks so much for youre quick and thoughtful response.

Ill bleach em a bit in warm water and then dish wash them.

I wont use any dishwashing liquid then I assume.

Lol, One question always leads to another.

Yeah, no soap, forgot to mention that. The dishwasher also makes a great bottling rack. When you fill the bottles, open the door to the dishwasher and do it over that - any spills land right in the dishwasher, ergo, no sticky floor.

the_bird said:

I use bleach, you just need to rinse well.

Do you have a dishwasher? You can't use that to clean them (the water can't get inside), but the heat will both help sanitize and remove any bleach residue that remains.

Click to expand...

Use of a dishwasher to sanitize is still a point of dissension with some of us.

A dishwasher "sanitizes" by steaming the water off the contents. As the water stream in the dishwasher can't effectively penetrate the entire inside surface of a bottle, that steaming action doesn't effectively reach all points of the bottle, just where the water managed to sit.

Many folks swear by dishwasher sanitizing. Me, I don't trust it, and sanitizers such as iodophor are real cheap and give complete peace of mind.

Do whatever you think is best for you, but consider all the possibilities before settling on your option.

Ok, but re-read my thread. I'm suggesting bleach, THEN dishwasher. Belt and suspenders, you know?

the_bird said:

Ok, but re-read my thread. I'm suggesting bleach, THEN dishwasher. Belt and suspenders, you know?

Click to expand...

OK, I'll drop the other objection: I just don't have faith that home dishwashers, in general, get hot enough during the dry cycle to provide adequate sanitation. Commercial units use pressurized steam to do this, but I'd venture a safe guess that most homes don't have access to pressurized steam.

Once again, if it works for you, great. I just don't trust it. Besides, in the time it takes to cycle the dishwasher, I can have all 55 of my bottles sanitized in iodophor and be into bottling.

It's all a matter of planning my time. I've actually been using Iodophor recently, but bleach worked fine for me before I made the conversion and I have no problem going back if need be. Basically, I sanitize, get them all in the dishwasher, run it through, then go do other stuff for two hours while it runs. When it finishes, boil up my priming sugar and go.

One more word of caution about using a dishwasher.
Don't use an anti-spotting agent such as jet-dry. They work by coating the items being washed with a surfactant which reduces surface tension. This does help prevent the water from causing spots as it dries, but it also destroys the head of any beer that comes into contact with it.

-a.

I can't imagine any bottles still smelling of beer. But I soak mine in a clean plastic trash barrel of bleach sanitiser- for several days. Why not? The labels loosen on 'new' bottles, the lid keeps the bleach in, bleach is 'no rinse' if not over-used. 1/2 cup to the 1/2 barrel of cool water from the garden hose. Plus a bottle brush in a Makita cordless drill. Drain in a plastic milk crate at an angle so the bottles will stand up-side-down. Then I drape a towel over the crate and flip the whole box onto my bottling table. Look into the crate, make sure the bottles are all standing up right before lifting the crate off. The towel ends up under the bottles to soak up spills. You don't have to drink any if you don't want to.

I'm disappointed at the lack of response to the title of this thread. Thus I have to reply.


I don't care how often you wash your 'used beer' in sanitizer. beer is a 'use once' item in my book. : )

Unkle Kornkob is right. I thought, used beer? Isn't that just a more civilized term for "piss"?

Casebrew: don't go around telling people that bleach is no-rinse. That's horse-hockey. Even a little bit of bleach can really screw up a batch.

To the thread-starter: I would not bother with the dishwasher. Buy yourself a Jet bottle & carboy washer. Saves alot of time, especially if you have a utility sink that you can hook it directly into. It basically is a high-pressure fixture that is shaped like a check-mark, with the trigger/activator in the form of a little bar that gets depressed when you slip a bottle or carboy over top of the end. Not only does it help with rinsing, but it also assures that your bottles don't have any nasties hiding in the bottom.

My advice regarding used bottles is:

1. If they are bottles that you retrieved from somewhere else, and you don't know if they've been cleaned (especially if they have labels), soak them in bleachwater for several days. Then clean them with the Jet washer (or just shake vigorously and rinse), and scape off the labels with a razor blade if you want. Just be sure to rinse before putting them into your sanitizing solution (i.e. Star San) because a toxic gas can be created if bleach and star san, etc., mix.
2. If they're your own bottles being recycled, then you should always make sure to rinse immediately after pouring your beer, including shaking vigorously with water. That way, all they need is sanitizing next time.
3. At bottling, soak in a sanitizer like Star San.
4. If, at bottling, any bottles still noticeably smell like anything other than the sanitizer, then do NOT use those bottles. However, if you've followed the first step, and soaked in bleach, then this should not be an issue.

bikebryan said:

A dishwasher "sanitizes" by steaming the water off the contents. As the water stream in the dishwasher can't effectively penetrate the entire inside surface of a bottle, that steaming action doesn't effectively reach all points of the bottle, just where the water managed to sit.

Click to expand...

If the bottles are getting hot enough to steam off the water, doesn't this mean that the heat inside the dishwasher is high enough to sanitize?

-walker

Walker-san said:

If the bottles are getting hot enough to steam off the water, doesn't this mean that the heat inside the dishwasher is high enough to sanitize?

-walker

Click to expand...

Not necessarily, or places that need terminal sanitization (aka sterile surfaces) would use dry heat as it would be much more economical.

Relying on the dry heat of the dishwasher to get anything hot enough to be sanitized isn't a good idea - it doesn't get hot enough for long enough to do any good.

Evan! said:

If they're your own bottles being recycled, then you should always make sure to rinse immediately after pouring your beer, including shaking vigorously with water. That way, all they need is sanitizing next time.

Click to expand...

Not true to what i have seen. The krausen from carbonating leaves a ring mark on the inside of the neck not rinsable.
It takes mechanical effort or something chemically to remove that. If you put a bottlebrush in to the bottle you will see that there is a very thin film of something oin the glass that does not get removed by rinsing. The extent is depending on yeast strain i found out.

I rinse my bottles in warm water right after use. When i have 5-10 of these almost clean bottles i give them all a quick spin with the bottlebrush on the cordless drill. Rinse and leave the upside down. Now they are ready to be sanitized.

To go slightly ot i also do my sanitation when i have the time. Take a couple of cases. Cover the openings with tin foil and bake in oven. I sometimes have sanitized bottles sitting in basement for months waiting for a botteling day.

Cheers
Jakob