how to sanitize bottles without vinator?

so I have 5 gallons of Sierra Nevada clone sitting in a fermentor, 3 weeks now. NEed to bottle this weekend (first timer). I read the FAQ thread and like the tips, but I don't have a vinator. I plan to rinse my 50 bottles in the dishawasher, and I have OneStep sanitizer, but how should I sanitize the bottles? I seems like I would need a lot of sanitizer mix and a huge tub, or do I have to individually soak 50 bottles for 2 minutes each? Hopefully not!!

When I bottle I usually just mix up a 3 gallon or so batch of sanitizer in a bucket and put six bottles in a time. I push them down until they all start filling with liquid and then just grab one, dump out the sanitizer, and move to the bottling wand to fill.

I'm not sure what the soaking for 2 minutes is all about, but I use Starsan and it just takes a quick dunk and as long as everything gets wet it's good to go. Takes a matter of seconds.

Here's what I've been doing now for about 10 years without a single bottle infection or off-flavor problem.

I put my bottles - about 12 - 14 at a time in an extra fermenting bucket or bottling bucket and dunk them in until they are full of the following solutions:

Used bottles:

1. Soak overnight in a bleach and water solution. The crap in the bottle pretty much floats out after a few hours. Labels come off like a dream (Especially the Sam Adams labels).

2. 2 minute soak in Iodophor and water solution.

3. Shake dry.

For new or clean-ish bottles:

I do the bleach and water soak for a few minutes then I switch to the Iodophor and water soak for two minutes followed by an air dry or a shake dry.

If the sediment/mold at the bottom of the bottle is stubborn I use a bottle brush while the bottle is submerged and scrub away (I do that to keep the bleach water from spraying all over me when I pull the bottle brush out).

Use your bottling bucket to do the bottle wash and then sanitize it and dry it out if that's what you have. A seven gallon bucket filled with about three and-a-half to four gallons of water will do about 12 to 15 bottles comfortably.

Bottling is a chore That's why I usually keg!

I fill them with sanitizing solution in a bucket for a minute, pour it out, give the bottle a good shake and set them in a plastic crate. When the crate is full of bottles, I cover them all with a couple pieces of foil that has been dipped in sanitizer as well. They stay that way until I'm ready to bottle.

Back in my bottling days I would just mix a half gallon of star san, add an ounce or two to each bottle, shake to wet the inside and drain. i found this easier and faster than submerging the bottles in a huge tub.

I have a spray bottle full of Starsan that I use a lot for sanitizing. I used to just spray Starsan inside my bottles before I bought my vinator. Then I would place them upside down on a the rack of the dishwasher - that I had also sprayed with Starsan. Worked fine.

It took me a while to buy a vinator, I am a cheap SOB, but it is one of the best purchases I have ever made. It makes bottling day go much quicker.

I do it like Marubozo but I dunk them in my kitchen sink and let them drain on the bottom rack of my dishwasher. I dunk and drain all the bottles I need and then proceed to filling over the open dishwasher door.

Dunk in a bucket of sanitizer and let drain (but not dry) or get a spraybottle and use it like a vinator. Hold the bottle upside down over a bucket, and spray inside and let drain. But add a vinator to your "to buy" list and get one asap. It's the best 10 bucks you could spend on brewing gear.

wilserbrewer said:

Back in my bottling days I would just mix a half gallon of star san, add an ounce or two to each bottle, shake to wet the inside and drain. i found this easier and faster than submerging the bottles in a huge tub.

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Me too. I just put a gallon in the bottling bucket, with bottling want attached. Then I grab bottles, fill with an oz or two, shake, pour the starsan back in the bucket and dip the neck of the bottle in while I'm doing that.

Sounds more complicated than it is; you can burn through 50 bottles in no time.

I stole one good recomendation from Alton Borwn's "Good Eats" episode on brewing. He uses a wallpaper tray like this...



I fill it with Strasan lie th bottles on their side and rotate to get complete coverage on the internal surfaces. then place them upside down on dish towels covered in plastic wrap sprayed with Starsan.

Any big box store will have one.

Now all your bottle are done your racking cane/ hoses will fit in the container nicely.

Garden sprayer

I rinse the bottles thoroughly when I pour out a beer so there is no gunk in the bottom. On bottling day I run them through the dishwasher on Sanitize cycle - no soap.

When done, I take them out to cool and pull up a chair, then use the open door of the dishwasher as a table to hold the bottles as I fill them. As filled, they go up on the counter until I am ready to cap. When all done, close the door and all the spillage goes right into the dishwasher. No fuss, no muss.

The only things I Star San are the caps, bottling wand and the tubing to the wand. The dishwasher has sanitized the bottles.

nice idea on the wallpaper tray. Will have to look into that!

Brewham Wrote:

I rinse the bottles thoroughly when I pour out a beer so there is no gunk in the bottom. On bottling day I run them through the dishwasher on Sanitize cycle - no soap.

When done, I take them out to cool and pull up a chair, then use the open door of the dishwasher as a table to hold the bottles as I fill them. As filled, they go up on the counter until I am ready to cap. When all done, close the door and all the spillage goes right into the dishwasher. No fuss, no muss.

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+1 on this.....I used to do this exact thing when I bottled in the kitchen. Now I use the dishwasher, but move the bottles when hot (almost too hot to touch) and dry (I use the heat drying of the dishwasher as well) and move them to my bottling area.....never had a bad bottle this way, but the secret is that the bottles are rinsed and clean of debris as they are emptied....a bottle with debris left in it gets recycled.

I don't have a vinator either, so I use a turkey baster to squirt star-san into the bottle.
While the baster is still squeezed, from squirting into bottle, I place it back into the bucket to draw more star-san while I work with the bottle.
I shake it up, dump the star-san back into the bucket, and hang the bottle on a tree or rack.