Sanitizer injecctor in bottle tree?

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ofthebest

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Hi there!

My boyfriend and I are pretty new at brewing, but we're looking into adding to our equipment with a bottling tree. A lot of them give you an option to buy a sanitizer injector to add onto it, and apparently it sprays all the sanitizer right up there into your washed bottles and saves you time. We're not sure we quite believe this, but I can't seem to find much discussion of these doodads online anywhere. Does anyone use them? Like them? Trust them? Hate them?

Thanks!
Amanda
 
I have one that I use for wine bottles. It works great for those, but I have not tried it on my beer bottles yet. It sprays a LOT of water into the bottle with each pump. With the wine bottles, I use a sulfite solution. Since you don't want live yeast in a bottle of wine (unless you are making a variation of sparkling wine), then the fact that there is residual sulfite solution in the bottle does not really matter. However, with beer, since you want live yeast in the bottle, you would need to make sure you use a sanitizing solution that is an on-contact, no-rinse sanitizer that would not impact the yeast. I am not sure what the effect of residual sulfite solution would be on beer, so I opt for a hot cycle through the dishwasher for my beer bottles.
 
bottle trees are awesome! i dont know about the sanitizer injector thingy, i think sanitizing bottles is superfluous, and dont do it...i heard they work ok though.
 
mwessinger said:
I have one that I use for wine bottles. It works great for those, but I have not tried it on my beer bottles yet. It sprays a LOT of water into the bottle with each pump. With the wine bottles, I use a sulfite solution. Since you don't want live yeast in a bottle of wine (unless you are making a variation of sparkling wine), then the fact that there is residual sulfite solution in the bottle does not really matter. However, with beer, since you want live yeast in the bottle, you would need to make sure you use a sanitizing solution that is an on-contact, no-rinse sanitizer that would not impact the yeast. I am not sure what the effect of residual sulfite solution would be on beer, so I opt for a hot cycle through the dishwasher for my beer bottles.
You can use any other sanitizer in these bottle sanitizers. Iodophor would work just fine, as would star-san. Hey ,so would bleach, but then you'd have to rinse out the bottle...and as we all were reminded by the master brewer usmccruz not that long ago, no REAL brewer uses bleach anyway.
 
I have one and use it on bottling day, I really like it. I usually rinse the bottles with water and put them on the tree then give them a shot of sanitizer with the thingy during bottling. Speeds things up quite a bit. You wouldn't be able to leave a sanitizing solution in it and use it as you put bottles on the tree because most sanitizers loose their effectiveness over a couple days if left exposed to the atmosphere.
 
Chairman Cheyco said:
...use it as you put bottles on the tree...
A bottle sprayer would be much more efficient for bottles alone. That's an excellent way to maximize your sanitizer usage in smaller batches.:D

If I made a batch of 5 gal Star San it can be used for a really long time and the bottle sprayer solution can be replaced easily.:D

I usually end up making a 15 gal batch of solution (with Iodophor) in the sink because I can lay down a primary bucket in it. After it's removed I can also place 2 cases of bottles in there.
 
I think it's personal preference. I love my bottle tree, but prefer to soak my bottles in a laundry sink with an iodophor solution, then let them drain on the bottle rack. I like the idea of sanitizing both the inside and outside of bottles just prior to bottling, but that's just me.
 
I too have one initially to be used for wine bottles. I now fill it with no-rinse star-san to spray my cleaned bottles on bottling day. Makes bottling day all that much easier when I do bottle.
 
i do the same with star-san
i used to use an funnel and pour some in each bottle, then shake each bottle
then drain
the sprayer saves a lot of time
 
Thor said:
I like the idea of sanitizing both the inside and outside of bottles just prior to bottling, but that's just me.
I do the same thing as you, but seeing you say it makes me wonder...why on earth are we concerned about sanitizing the outside of the bottle? :confused:
 
ofthebest said:
Hi there!

My boyfriend and I are pretty new at brewing, but we're looking into adding to our equipment with a bottling tree. A lot of them give you an option to buy a sanitizer injector to add onto it, and apparently it sprays all the sanitizer right up there into your washed bottles and saves you time. We're not sure we quite believe this, but I can't seem to find much discussion of these doodads online anywhere. Does anyone use them? Like them? Trust them? Hate them?

Thanks!
Amanda

If you're going to bottle, the sanitizer injector used with StarSan (a fast acting, food grade, no-rinse sanitizer) and the bottle tree are great. I have both and love them. It will save you time and space, as well as improving good sanitation. Bacteria, wild yeast, and other kooties are--like most things--susceptible to gravity and the bottle tree keeps the mouth of the bottle upside-down. Simply give clean bottles a blast or two from the injector and hang them on the tree (no need to rinse). By the time you're done sanitizing a couple of cases of 12 ouncers, start bottling with the dried bottles you hung on the tree first. The tree is also great for storing empties.

A word about StarSan: I've used it in the water bottling industry in the '80s, it is tried and true. Inexpensive, fast acting (1-2 minutes contact time), colorless, non-staining, and tasteless when dry. Some people use Idophor which does the trick, but has longer contact time and stains plastic buckets and beer lines. What ever you do don't use bleach. I know some swear by bleach for sanitizing, but it's B L E A C H for god's sake! I know it will kill bacteria, but have heard too many stories of beer batches being ruined from the nasty stuff. Basically, I don't want to drink bleach. Although, if you want a good time listen to "Bleach Boys" from The Dead Milkmen, off of the "Beelzebubba" album.:rockin: Here's an audio link: http://www.content.loudeye.com/scripts/hurl.exe?clipid=000570701080000020&cid=600111

Anyway, IMO a sanitizer injector and bottle tree are worth every penny.
 
I too love star san. I mix it up in small amounts and add it to a spay bottle to sanitize things in a hurry. It goes a long way if you use it this way. I'd like to get/make a bottle tree sometime but I think I'll be putting together a kegging setup this summer.. ah well. The tree things look like they'd be helpful but I can't really find a place for it anyway (even if it does disassemble). Although, if you rinse you bottles in some no rinse sanitizer then I'm not even sure why you'd need the tree anyhow - the bottles don't need to dry before you add the beer. Maybe if you just stored them on the tree, that might look pretty nifty. I store mine in cases behind the couch anyway...

Here's my experiences on bottling day (I bottled 58 bottles today BTW): I've tried everything from soaking bottles in star san (too wasteful with the star san) to rinsing the bottles out after use, spraying the inside and mouth with star san and placing platic wrap over them for storage (time consuming and messy). I tried just spraying them with the sanitizer on bottling day but this makes bottling day take even longer than it does if I'd sanitized the bottles in advance. The last couple times I tried using heat (the oven) to sterilize.. yes, that's right I said sterilize the bottles. On bottling day I put the bottles in the oven and then gradually heat it to 340 deg.. Palmer suggests 5 deg per minute. Later that afternoon or evening when the bottles have cooled I pull some out, set them on the oven door and bottle from there. It's simple, organized, no fuss and very very sanitary (sterile in fact). I did discover a new castle bottle with a crack in it today though I have no way of knowing if that was from the heat or something else. Others use the high temp option with the dishwasher (don't use detergent!).. I think this sounds like a very viable option as well.. I'm just not sure I trust my dishwasher to get hot enough. With the oven I know exactly what temp it is in there and I can be sure that the bottles are sterile. Of course, by this point the beer isn't very prone to infection anyway so whatever steps you take on bottling day will probably be more than sufficient.
 
Thanks very much, you guys!
We're def. getting the bottling tree, but I think we're going to hold off on the injector. We sanitize with Idophor, and I think I'm going to just get a big rubbermaid tank/bucket/whatever and do the soak-to-bottling-tree routine. If that gets annoying then maybe we'll try the injector.
 
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