Bottle Washer

Hi Guys,

I am thinking of trying to build some sort of bottle washer. My Idea is to construct a tree with pipe similar to a drying rack. With one end attached to a pump, this will pump liquid through the tree into each bottle.

To use I am thinking:

1) Pump Sterilising fluid into the tree
2) Pump water into the tree to rinse
3) Leave it to dry on the tree

I am thinking by doing it this way I could wash an entire brews worth of bottles in a couple of minutes.

Have any of you guys done something like this ? Care to share thoughts/experiences ? If anybody sees any flaws with this idea or has a better one I'd appreciate the feedback.

Thanks,
JC

someone has to sell this. I have thought about this too. what about just PVC 1/2" piping

PVC piping is what I had in mind, the main area I am not sure about is what sort of pump to use. I am thinking I will see what sort of pump I can get my hands on cheaply and go from there.....

I had an idea for something like this once but I haven't tried to build it yet, basically take one of those store bought red plastic bottle drying racks and build a circulatory system with that small diameter silicone tubing used for air-stones and aquarium pumps. the issue with this design is you need either a lot of tee connections for the tubing or to build some kind of manifold a 1 into 9 tee. with both the PVC and this design you might want to work out some way to turn off excess tiers on the bottle rack since I assume you wont always be sanitizing the full rack of bottles or squirting fluid into nothing or sterilizing bottles you don't need.

This is the bottle rack i would try to build if you wanted to make something from scratch. the drawings arent complete just cause of lazyness but the first one is a cross sectional view of the top, the top most piece is a plunger that has a hose connected to the top that would go to a pump and it would be inserted into the tube as far as you want to bypass the upper tiers so that if your not sanitizing a full rack you dont have to pump fluid to the upper tiers. the second picture is just to give you an idea of what the full thing would be.
http://www.buerkle.de/eng/d2-1.php
this link shows chemical resistances for various plastics, basically it says do not use iodine and PVC but bleach and PVC is ok. So make sure whatever plastics you use are safe with the sanitizers your going to use.

bleach would defeat the entire purpose, you would have to rinse. Starsan would probably foam too much to be useful. Wouldn't it be just as easy to do one bottle at a time with a pump? You have to put the bottles on the tree anyway.

This is a very rough drawing of what I have in mind.



This would be enclosed in a sort of box with say around 15 bottles per level.
Each level would be attached to the back bone water supply with flexible hose so you can pull it out to stack bottles.

To use you would fill the reservoir at the bottom with sterilising agent + water. The pump would then pump the agent into the bottles. After a minute or two switch off the pump, use the tap to drain out the sterilising agent. Then fill the reservoir with water, switch on the pump and it rinses the bottles. Just leave the bottles in the rack to drain and you are ready to go. I was also thinking of space in the enclosure for the other bits and pieces that need to be cleaned.

actually I dont know why i didnt think of it earlier but you could just use the dishwasher it takes a little more time but it sanitizes really well and doesnt take much effort.

You would definitely need something to secure the bottles from the water pressure that you're using to sanitize/rinse.

I had thought of the dishwasher idea (I normally put the bottles in the dishwasher as I use them, before storing them) but would a normal cycle really sanitise the bottles ? I reckon if I put the sanitising agent in the dishwasher and it corroded something or ended up breaking the dishwasher I'd have to find somewhere else to live....

i think for the dishwasher you dont need the sanitizer i think you can use water and the heat drying cycle the steam will sanitize the bottles. but i havent tried this technique yet so if im wrong someone correct me.

Yea, it would be good to hear if anybody out there is using their dishwasher to sanitise the bottles, could save me having to try and re-invent the wheel...

This link seems to have everything you could want to know about sanitation and then some, including dishwasher related stuff.
http://realbeer.com/jjpalmer/cleaning.html

Why reinvent the wheel, save the cool ingenuity for something that will save time or make your beer better

I am pretty new to home brewing after receiving the kit as a gift. It came with a container of "Brewchlor" which I presume is some sort of brewing bleach. The instructions on the bottle read along the lines of. "Put one cap full in a bottle half filled with water, shake vigorously (the bottle that is) and pour contents into next bottle (for 15 bottles). Each bottle should then be rinsed thoroughly. " I fill about 60 bottles per batch (I prefer the stubby size), so you can imagine it grows old pretty quick. From what I reading here am I correct to say that if I use one of those "tree-top" pumps and starsan steriliser all I need to do is give the bottles one quick push on the pump, put in on the tree and then bottle to it without rinsing ?

thats right, simple as pie and fast

In that case I think I'll shelve this project, give the "Starsan" method a try and get back to trying to come up with a quicker way to fill the bottles

Is Starsan a brand name ? Is there a chemical name for the stuff ? I'm in Australia so I don't know if it will be called the same here. My local brew shop is pretty poor when it comes to helping out (they didn't know what yeast nutrient was), so if I am going to try and find the stuff I might need to know exactly what it is.

Thanks,
JC

Yes Starsan is the brand. Not sure on the chemical name.

Here is the company website http://www.fivestarchemicals.com/

SuperiorBrew said:

Why reinvent the wheel, save the cool ingenuity for something that will save time or make your beer better

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I completely agree. Also add this to the list:

Unless you secure the bottles to the bottle tree/washer idea, you could have a bit of a cluster bomb on your hands when the water pressure launches all of the bottles off of it.

SuperiorBrew said:

Why reinvent the wheel, save the cool ingenuity for something that will save time or make your beer better

Click to expand...

Thanks for great advice.

I got myself one of these babes last week and have just finished my first bottling with it. Saved me buckets of time (and water which is important her in drought effected Australia). Worth it's weight in gold I'd say.

Thanks again for all the replies,
JC

Do we all know that sanatising temp is 82+ Degrees Celsius.

jeagle1957 said:

Do we all know that sanatising temp is 82+ Degrees Celsius.

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You might be talking to ghosts bud. This thread is almost 9 years old...