The oft overlooked bottle sterilization method

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Madtown Brew

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oven sterilization!

Seriously folks, for those of us who have to bottle, this is the easiest, most painfree way to get your bottles ready to fill. All you need to do is clean them, then cover the bottle with a small peice of Al. foil and load them into the oven. I like to do it at 350 dF for 1 - 1.5 hrs. Turn off the oven and bottle when they have cooled completely.

It's easy because you can clean and bake the night before. Just leave htem in the oven until the next day when your ready to bottle. EZPZ
 
I've always been concerned with exploding hot glass. I know if you slowly lower the heat there is no concern, but it sounds like a lot of time.
 
I've done that every time, I usually foil them when done (with foil that baked with them). Every few months I just sterilize every bottle I have, and I always have them ready for bottling....I have a feeling that I am going to need to purge some bottles now that I am kegging though.
 
Madtown Brew said:
oven sterilization!
I like to do it at 350 dF for 1 - 1.5 hrs. Turn off the oven and bottle when they have cooled completely.
Click to expand...

Man, that's a lot. Most medical autoclaves only go 249* for 15 min... Even the autoclaves that must destroy the ultra difficult mad-cow prions only go 273* for 18 min. And for beer, we're only after sanitary...
 
pldoolittle said:
Man, that's a lot. Most medical autoclaves only go 249* for 15 min... Even the autoclaves that must destroy the ultra difficult mad-cow prions only go 273* for 18 min. And for beer, we're only after sanitary...
Click to expand...

you are neglecting the fact that those autoclaves are also pushing upwards of 30psi....
 
kb9vzh said:
How do you get 50+ bottles in your oven? Do you remove the racks?
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I don't think you'll want the bottles touching the element... maybe lay them on their side with multiple racks?
 
Keep in mind, it's "moist heat" that kills micro organisms the best...hence the steam autoclave. Maybe if you filled the bottom of each bottle a cm or so with tap/ filtered water and then baked, you'd create a hot moist environment that would mimic the autoclave (minus the pressure).
 
Seems like a BIG waste of energy to get out of a little work to me.

I would never use it.

If you rinse out your bottle a couple of times right after draining them, inspect them for cleanliness then place them on a drying tree you'll never have to clean them again. That's what I do.

I just sanitize them before refilling. Way too easy.;)
 
Clean Storage became a real hassle until I got the botttle tree...

Now, every empty gets washed out immediately to remove yeasties, then onto the rack ...

Objective is to always have bottles ready to sanitize...

Mist confess though that kegging is in the near future !
 
30 seconds in a bucket of star-san or one-step and then 5 minutes on the bottle tree to drain out.
cheaper, faster, easier, no risk of stressing the glass...
 
I just load up my dishwasher and run it through the sanitizing cycle.
It makes life way easier.

I did an experiment the last time and just took a few cleaned bottles and dumped some sanitizing solution in them for about 30 seconds then emptied and filled them...they turned out just fine.
 
ScubaSteve said:
Keep in mind, it's "moist heat" that kills micro organisms the best...hence the steam autoclave. Maybe if you filled the bottom of each bottle a cm or so with tap/ filtered water and then baked, you'd create a hot moist environment that would mimic the autoclave (minus the pressure).
Click to expand...

No that may break the bottles... Maybe a cookie sheet in the bottom of the oven, the moisture will still get into the bottles.
 
I agree that it may not be quicker than diping them in sanitizer, but I do feel it is easier. Just clean the bottles, cover w/ foil and fill the oven. Set it and forget it type systems work well for me. I go by Palmer's reccomendation of 340dF for 1 hr, but my oven dial doesn't have a 340 mark so I set it to 350.
Some of the pro's of this method are:
-sterilization vs. mere sanitization
-can be done the night before
Also, sanitizers only work well if your bottles are clean. But in an oven, if you missed a bit of gunk on the inside of one, it will get killed/burned off by the heat (I still clean mine thoroughly anyways, but it's nice to have that extra bit of insurance).

@kb9vzh: I can fit just over 50 bottles in my oven, which is pretty average size (it helps to use 6-12 bombers though to cut down on the sheer # of bottles). I lay them flat on the racks and can usually stack 2-3 high on the bottom rack and one more layer on the top rack. I wouldn't suggest taking out the racks, as you probably don't want the bottles actually sitting on the heating elements.
 
ColoradoXJ13 said:
you are neglecting the fact that those autoclaves are also pushing upwards of 30psi....
Click to expand...

Not really. The extra pressure is used in wet autoclaves raise the condensation point .
 
actually, the pressure is used to get the temp up on the autoclave, boiling water only gets up to 212 Degrees give or take a few degrees. the added pressure allows the water to get to a much higher temp. during dry sterilizing the temps are raised to 350 degrees or higher. i fix medical equipment for a living i've been looking for a large autoclave to fit my kegs into to make things easier!!! lol
 
justbrewit said:
i've been looking for a large autoclave to fit my kegs into to make things easier!!! lol
Click to expand...

Some part of me is thinking that any plastic/rubber parts would not fair so well in an autoclave...
 
I would not autoclave racking canes or plastic tubing. But I have done my carboys, bottles and stoppers without any problems
 
justbrewit said:
actually, the pressure is used to get the temp up on the autoclave, boiling water only gets up to 212 Degrees give or take a few degrees. the added pressure allows the water to get to a much higher temp.

That's what I said!
Click to expand...
 
If I still bottled, I'd be all over the Vinator sanitizer pump on top of a bottling tree.

It bypasses all the trouble trying to submerse a bottle into a large container of sanitizer. You can probably run 55 bottles in 10 minutes using only a quart or so of sanitizer in the process. $12 well spent and no natural gas wasted.
 
I actually use Bobby M's method outlined here:



Granted, I can do it quicker with a bucket of sanitizing solution but with the dishwasher method, I can run the bottles in the morning or afternoon and leave them there until its time to bottle at night. It saves space and it prevents spills on the floor. BTW, thanks for the tip Bobby!

Bill
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I use the oven method also. Until we tore out all of the trimmings in our basement, There was a mold that not only made us ill, it would grow on the One Step in my airlocks. Needless to say that although the mold seems gone, I take no chances of repeating the past.

I have only had two bottles break from stress over the years(5). Both EZ Cap Cobalt Blue. Those bottles aren't available anymore, and they cracked at the neck where the top was attached.

I don't use water in the oven. Ours is so hard that it leaves scale when it evaporates making it next to impossible to clean unless I break out the CLR.

I don't use aluminum on the tops figuring that if an oven is sterile, is cooled off overnight and not opened, it should remain sterile.

By the way I use the bottom rack only, and can fit 24 12oz, and 20 16oz.

I do agree though that cleaning bottle immediately after emptying them makes the world a better place.

as for Kegging-with all the teens running in and out of my house, I was young once. When I'm old and have no children about I'm kegging. til then ... I dream... and bottle.

Barry
 
I've been going with the oven method lately and it's worked great. Whenever I have extra time, I rinse, scrape, drip-dry the bottles. Then I bake them once dried, and set them aside for whenever I need to bottle next. It makes the actual bottling session a lot quicker-and I like not having to dip them in sanitizer and try to cap a wet bottle.
 
Bobby_M said:
If I still bottled, I'd be all over the Vinator sanitizer pump on top of a bottling tree.

It bypasses all the trouble trying to submerse a bottle into a large container of sanitizer. You can probably run 55 bottles in 10 minutes using only a quart or so of sanitizer in the process. $12 well spent and no natural gas wasted.
Click to expand...

I just bought and used a Vinator. It was quicker and used less sanitizer than dunking. Made bottling less of a chore.

I am sure that if someone put some effort into it, they could come up with a pump operated Vinator using a submersible pump and one of those bottle cleaning nozzles that you attach to your faucet.
 
i use the dishwasher. i always rinse a bottle as soon as i'm finished drinking it, then put the bottles in a box, clean but not sterilized.

then when it's time to bottle (when i still do on occasion) i just load the "clean" bottles into the dishwasher, and run the rinse cycle, followed by the heat/dry cycle to sterilize. works fine, and really takes NO effort, and the dishwasher has the "pokey" thingies to hold the bottles.

i don't understand why anybody would ever do it another way. this doesn't use/waste any expensive starsan, and does the trick.

brian
 
This noob hasn't even bottled yet, but I can't see how a dunk in a sink full of sanitizer is more work than cleaning them, wrapping them in foil, aligning them in the oven, baking, waiting to cool, and unfoiling.

The gist I have from here and my LHBS is that the sanitizer just needs to touch the area and its clean. Dunk and you're done!
 
OblivionsGate said:
This noob hasn't even bottled yet, but I can't see how a dunk in a sink full of sanitizer is more work than cleaning them, wrapping them in foil, aligning them in the oven, baking, waiting to cool, and unfoiling.

The gist I have from here and my LHBS is that the sanitizer just needs to touch the area and its clean. Dunk and you're done!
Click to expand...

Just don't use that Freemansburg Water!:p
 
brian williams said:
i use the dishwasher. i always rinse a bottle as soon as i'm finished drinking it, then put the bottles in a box, clean but not sterilized.

then when it's time to bottle (when i still do on occasion) i just load the "clean" bottles into the dishwasher, and run the rinse cycle, followed by the heat/dry cycle to sterilize. works fine, and really takes NO effort, and the dishwasher has the "pokey" thingies to hold the bottles.

i don't understand why anybody would ever do it another way. this doesn't use/waste any expensive starsan, and does the trick.

brian
Click to expand...


thats exactly what I do brian, I don't understand why anyone would bother to make it any more complicated than that
 
OblivionsGate said:
This noob hasn't even bottled yet, but I can't see how a dunk in a sink full of sanitizer is more work than cleaning them, wrapping them in foil, aligning them in the oven, baking, waiting to cool, and unfoiling.

The gist I have from here and my LHBS is that the sanitizer just needs to touch the area and its clean. Dunk and you're done!
Click to expand...
You still have to clean the bottles, whether its right after you drink, or when you are sanitizing. Sanitizer solution is useless if there is sediment.

All in all, sanitizing 40-50 bottles is a PITA. Its really why I hate bottling. I've never really thought of this method before...but now I think I'm going to try it for bottling day tomorrow.
 

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