Cleaning bottles

So I"m trying to figure out what the best way to clean 2 cases of bottles is.

Once I get the bottles *clean*, I'm good to go, but cleaning seems to really bring me down on bottling day. The sanitize and fill aspects seem to go quick enough.

Yesterday, I used the bottle brush on 50 some bottles. Hot soapy water, and a couple of rinses, and I'll be good to bottle this weekend. But what a PIA

Using the bottle brush takes a long time. But I've had cases where I swish around some sanitizer, and brown sediment drops out of the bottle I was going to use. Yuk. Normally, I rinse out my HB bottles the night I drink them, but I certainly don't brush them out at the time.

What's the best, if any, alternative to using a bottle brush on every bottle? Is the jet washer good enough?

well if you fill the bottles from a keg you won't have the normal sediment from carbing the bottles. Then washing wouldn't be so bad.

I use a big round tub I got at the grocery store. Put the bottles in, fill it with water, add some Oxiclean and let it sit overnight. Next day, rinse the crap out of the bottles and store them upside down in boxes with dividers. I can fit about a case in the tub, and I also use a Homer bucket for the same purpose. Might take a couple of days to 'clean' them, but the Oxiclean is doing the work.

I find it's better to clean bottles a few days in advance if only to make it seem like not so much work.

I soak all my bottles in hot PBW overnight. Works great. Just set them upright in a bucket and fill them up. The next day empty and blast with the bottle washer. They will be clean and you can still reuse the PBW. I never even touch my bottle brush.

Also, if you take a little extra time to rinse them good when you empty them, it goes a long way when you are cleaning a whole bunch.
I've also read somewhere that someone stuck their bottle brush in their drill to speed things up.

I don't often use a brush. I do use it to remove kraeusen rings once in a while. If you rinse them clean before storing you don't really have to clean them. I just rinse them when they come out of storage to remove any dust or insects then sanitize.

Sometimes I rinse them at the sink and sanitize them in the dish washer. Other times I set out a bucket of warm watter and another bucket of Iodopher (starsan is hard on the hands and I hate the foam.) I grab a bottle and put it under the watter a few seconds and with my thumb over the top I shake it then dump it back in the bucket. Then I grab a dry bottle and rinse it as I sanitize the other the same way in the other hand. I place the sanitized one aside, trade hands with the rinsed one, grab another dry one, repeat. Using both hands it goes fast. With two people one could rinse two bottles and the other sanitize two bottles and really fly.

FWIW, I've never used a brush on a bottle. Before I use them for the first time, they get a 3+ hour soak in a hot bleach or oxyclean solution to knock out any funk and loosen up the labels, then rinse them out really well. I sanitize immediately before filling them - and after pouring the beer into my glass I immediately rinse them 2-3 times with water (shaking vigorously upside down as they drain) and stow them for the next use. Subsequent uses I've simply re-sanitized and filled them again - I've done it this way for at least 8-10 fills without any cleaning (only rinsing) in between, and I've never had a bottle infection or off flavor.

are you an iFisher? ^^^

If a bottle has gunk in it that would require a brush to remove, it gets chucked...

I soak in oxiclean, then dishwasher, then put away until bottling day, when they get taken out, santized, and filled.

FlySpargeVorlauf said:

are you an iFisher? ^^^

Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't visit there as often as I used to but I've been on there for several years. Same screen name.

I soak mine in a bucket of hot water and Oxiclean. Then I attach an adapter to my faucet and a 2 outlet "Y" valve. I put my jet washer on one of the outlets - on the other one, I just crack the valve open enough to get a fine spray. I take a bottle from the bucket, rinse the outside (and my hand) under the spray, then squirt the inside with the jet washer, maybe a final quick squirt under the spray and place it upside down in the top rack of the dishwasher. Never need to use a brush because I rinse my bottles immediately after emptying them.

hot water and oxyclean overnight

I usually sanatize a few days before i bottle and set them upside down. I know there is a CHANCE they could get nasties in them before bottling day, but the chances of that is pretty slim while they are upside down. It definitely makes bottling day easier and i've never had any problems with contamination

I have some buddies that bring me empties. Some have been sitting in their garage for a month without ever being rinsed. I leave them immersed in an oxyclean mix and within two days or so, all the gunk lets loose and floats out of the bottles.

Last week I was getting ready to bottle a batch of Irish Red Ale. My brother showed up with 3 cases of bottles that were as nasty as I've seen.
Figures I'd do them and the ones I had at the same time. I took a kiddie pool that was in the shed filled it with the hose and tossed in a bunch of pbw.
Let them sit for two days outside and then just dumped em , and rinsed. Labels ,glue ,and all the nasties were gone.
Gonna use em today or tomorrow for another batch that is ready.

I have gotten into the habit of rinsing my bottles after pouring into a glass. This has really cut down on the "cleaning" time. I fill the sink and rinse each bottle in warm water to inspect for any nasties. They get loaded into the dishwasher with no soap and heated dry. I can get 48 bottles in. Then we set up the sanitizing bucket and bottling bucket. Dip, Rinse, Fill, Cap. The process used to take hours but it's pretty manageable now.

If I can't rinse a bottle right after using it as to remove the sediment, I also discard it. Cleaning dried sediment out is way too much work.

Plus, new bottles aren't that expensive. And some already come with beer in them!

+1 one on the dishwasher.. I put as many as I can in there.. I get enough bottles for a 5 gallon batch withno problem.. I inspect the bottles to make sure they are clean.. I take a squirt bottle and squirt my star san in them.. Then I am good to go.. I usually pitch the ones that are not clean from the dishwasher.. If I bottle 2 batches.. I have a friend run a load of bottles in his dishwasher the night before as well.. Not a big deal.. Its really not alot work..

Bottle Smarter.. Not Harder!!

When I bottled, I would put them in a trash can and soak them in TSP. We bought the TSP from the LHBS and it was expensive. Now, all of the big box stores sell it. Normally, we had plenty of bottles that had been soaking for a couple of weeks so we didn't have to speed clean. I would add some chlorine bleach every 3-4 days to keep stuff from growing in the trash can. Then, put my jet washer on my faucet and blasted out the funk. I usually mixed it twice the strength recommended but usually labels just fell off. I don't think I ever used a brush on a bottle. We used to get them from a couple of Pubs so sometimes they were very funky. I think I'll try some of that generic Oxyclean from Wally World when I do bottles again. Luck - Dwain

I just bottled yesterday and was thinking to myself "there has to be an easier way to do this". My process is:

1) Fill sink with soapy water
2) Brush out bottles
3) Rinse
4) Put in bucket of water w/ bleach
5) Rinse
6) Dry
7) Bottle

Plenty of good tips here, and glad to see I may not need to brush.

aeonderdock, That was my procedure last weekend. (except starsan instead of bleach)
I normally do not use the brush, but I had two infected batches, so I decided to scrub them down. (In the end, I think it was my bottling spigot and/or my hoses)

I've noticed in the past, some bottles would spit up a tiny bit of residue after giving them another bit of starsan just before I filled the bottle. I wouldn't use those bottles, but I always wondered what bottles I didn't catch.

In the future, I think I'll be doing the oxy soak w/ hot water. The brush is a PIA. I shall also need a vintator.

you could just chuck the bottle brush in a cordless drill fill halfway and use the drill not hard at all . I did this when I got some real dirty flip top bottles.

i just loaded about 40 bottles with labels and dried beer into a cooler, neck up. mixed up an oxiclean solution and hot water then dumped into bottles and then filled remaining voids. I did this on monday night, last night i checked on them, water was still warm-hot, i pulled out a couple of bottles and they were clean of labels, glues and dried beer.

not much work. i am going to go thru and use a bottle jet and rinse them out and then put into sanitzer and fill up 10-20 when when my keg is ready to tap.

i brewed up a 11 gallon batch. split it into fermenters, and one fermenter had about 6 gallons in it. I kegged ~2 gallons into 1 keg, and 4 gallons into another keg. the 2 gallons are going ot be transferred to bottles.

+1 on the Oxyclean... I had a bunch of dirty bottles from a weekend of drunkenness and wanted to get them clean fast and easy. Just filled my bathtub full of oxyclean and hot water and filled it with about 100 bottles. About 6 hours later I rinsed the bottles and spent about an hour picking all the damned labels out of the tub.
Oxyclean is wonderful stuff.