bottle sanitizing

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BubbaK

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How long can the bottles sit after sanitizing? I've seen people leaving them in the dishwasher overnight.. thats ok I guess? I was just planning on soaking in no rinse sanitizer and letting them drip dry.. I have a pretty big dish drain I was planning on flipping the bottles over to drain in... Should the dish drain be sanitized as well since the bottles will be sitting on the rack? Do you sanitize a bottle tree?

Also, I've seen comments yes/no for sanitizing the caps... I've got a brand new unopened bag of caps... sanitize them?
 
If you use a high heat dishwasher and dont open it they can sit overnight. If you use a no rinse sanitizer you dont want to let them dry. Let them soak while you are preparing to bottle and take them out and empty as you bottle. I do 12 a time and it goes pretty well. I do my caps but lots of people in here do not and dont have any problems. Flip a coin.
 
I would think they would be OK over night so long as you don't mess with them (open the door etc). As far as caps go... I just get a bowl and mix a small no rinse solution and drop the caps into it. Can't hurt anything being a little extra careful....
 
I'm just a noob but why sanitize anything if you aren't going to sanitize the caps? It's touching your beer. It needs to be sanitized. It's not being "extra careful".
 
I've heard that you don't want to sanitize the oxygen-fixing caps as it will render them ineffective at oxygen-fixing.
 
Another way of sterilizing bottles is to "bake" them in the oven. You can see more of this technique in John Palmer's "How to Brew" which is free on line under howtobrew.com. Basically it involves heating the bottles in the oven at 338 degrees for one hour. Cover the bottle ends with a piece of alum foil. Since most bottles are of the soda lime variety of glass, they are more heat sensitive and they need to be heated and cooled slowly. With the foil covers on they should be sterile indefinitely until you are ready to bottle. You might want to wipe the openings with StarSan right before filling and capping. This is a sterilization procedure and not just sanitizing. This way you could do this the night before and not worry about keeping the bottles wet from a no rinse sanitizer.
 
I think I'll probably give the dishwasher a shot. I saw something about using oxyclean? I've got a new case of bottles and the rest are used bottles that have all been cleaned and run through the dishwasher already..
 
Another way of sterilizing bottles is to "bake" them in the oven. You can see more of this technique in John Palmer's "How to Brew" which is free on line under howtobrew.com. Basically it involves heating the bottles in the oven at 338 degrees for one hour. Cover the bottle ends with a piece of alum foil. Since most bottles are of the soda lime variety of glass, they are more heat sensitive and they need to be heated and cooled slowly. With the foil covers on they should be sterile indefinitely until you are ready to bottle. You might want to wipe the openings with StarSan right before filling and capping. This is a sterilization procedure and not just sanitizing. This way you could do this the night before and not worry about keeping the bottles wet from a no rinse sanitizer.

Thanks. I will probably do my first batch this way. Sounds way easier than anything else
 
Have the bottles in the oven when you start heating, so that you are not subjecting the bottles to a rapid heating. When you reach the designated temp, then start timing. Let them cool in the oven. When cool enough to handle, then take them out of the oven. Make sure you leave the foil on when you store them. Take the foil off right before you are ready to bottle. Have the caps soaking in the starsan. Wipe the opening with a star san soaked sponge, or just dip the opening in the pan you have the caps soaking in.
 
1 oz. Starsan = 5gallons of solution submerge bottles allow to sit for 30 seconds place on bottle tree until you get 53 or so and then start bottling. Sounds easier than the oven to me. JMHO
 
1 oz. Starsan = 5gallons of solution submerge bottles allow to sit for 30 seconds place on bottle tree until you get 53 or so and then start bottling. Sounds easier than the oven to me. JMHO

I don't have a bottle tree.

I don't see why it would be necessary to re-sanitize the lip of the bottle after the oven if it was covered in foil.
 
I just did my first bottling. I soaked my bottles in Oxiclean and water to get the commercial labels off. That worked great as they just fell off the bottles. I then rinsed the bottles off and placed them in my dishwasher. My dishwasher has a anti-baterial setting which apparently sanitizes. There is a sanitize light on the front that comes on when sanitizing is successful. Apparently, it is able to monitor the water temp and heating cycles to make sure the sanitation is successful.

I kept the dishwasher shut until I was ready to bottle. I also soaked the caps in star san. Overall, was a pretty simple process.
 
I just fill one of the tubs in my sink with no rinse. In the other tub I rinse off and check my bottles (make sure there is no deposits in the bottom.) Once I feel it is debris free I put them in the no rinse solution then grab another bottle. Once I go through a tub full I load them in the dishwasher. I repeat this process till all bottles are cleaned, soaked for a few minutes, and in the dishwasher. I fire the dishwasher up with no soap and set on heat drying. In a couple of hours they are ready to bottle straight from the dishwasher. I even heard the trick of bottling right there on the open dishwasher door to keep the mess down. Did that last time and no sticky stuff on the floor this go round.
 
Thanks. I will probably do my first batch this way. Sounds way easier than anything else

Do take the extraordinary instructions seriously if you go the "oven" way. I did this for 1/2 of my first batch, and two bottles (only four of this type of bottle were used) self destructed when I was capping them. One was later sheared in half while in transit when returning to Oregon following a Christmas visit. I suspect the four bottles were severely weakened due to the heating/cooling, but have no other proof of this.

I stepped the oven up 10 degrees from 200 up to 330 every 10 minutes to slowly ramp them up, and baked for about an hour, then shut off the oven and didn't remove them until they were in there for another hour or so cooling down.

defective_bottles01.jpg


I decided to go with iodophor instead so I can sleep better at night.
 
Well, you certainly don't want an infection, so I'm confused.

Everything in brewing is a trade-off and the brewer has to decide what s/he believes to be important and worthwhile.

In the case of 02-absorbing caps the brewer is saying that the chance (or consequences) of oxidation is greater than that of infection. Many folks do not sanitize caps at all, ever, believing (correctly or incorrectly) that either that the caps are sanitary coming out of the bag or that if the caps are not sanitary that they are unlikely to compromise the beer.

Personally. I do sanitize them in whatever no-rinse I've got set up. I don't use 02 caps because they are relatively $$$ and do not permit sanitization.
 
Here's how I sanitize. This may be overkill but it seemed to work.

- When I drink the beer I soak in hot water and remove the label.
- I run the bottles throught the dishwasher (regular w. soap)
- I store the bottles till I need them
- The day of bottling I run all of the bottles through the dishwasher with powerder no-rinse sanitizer and heat dry on
- Then I make a hot water bath with the sanitizer and let the bottles soak and use the bottle brush when needed.
- Drain the bottles and put them upside down to dry out
- Pour the caps into bowl of sani h20
- Bottle
- If for any reason I can't bottle that day I make a new batch of hot H20 w sanitizer and rinse again
 
Do take the extraordinary instructions seriously if you go the "oven" way. I did this for 1/2 of my first batch, and two bottles (only four of this type of bottle were used) self destructed when I was capping them. One was later sheared in half while in transit when returning to Oregon following a Christmas visit. I suspect the four bottles were severely weakened due to the heating/cooling, but have no other proof of this.

I stepped the oven up 10 degrees from 200 up to 330 every 10 minutes to slowly ramp them up, and baked for about an hour, then shut off the oven and didn't remove them until they were in there for another hour or so cooling down.

defective_bottles01.jpg


I decided to go with iodophor instead so I can sleep better at night.

Wow, I hope this doesn't happen to me. I just baked my first batch of bottles.
 
Do take the extraordinary instructions seriously if you go the "oven" way. I did this for 1/2 of my first batch, and two bottles (only four of this type of bottle were used) self destructed when I was capping them. One was later sheared in half while in transit when returning to Oregon following a Christmas visit. I suspect the four bottles were severely weakened due to the heating/cooling, but have no other proof of this.

I stepped the oven up 10 degrees from 200 up to 330 every 10 minutes to slowly ramp them up, and baked for about an hour, then shut off the oven and didn't remove them until they were in there for another hour or so cooling down.

defective_bottles01.jpg


I decided to go with iodophor instead so I can sleep better at night.


I just bottled my first batch last weekend - baked the bottles in the oven the day before - 30 bottles in each of my two electric ovens. I was worried about cracking the bottles due to the intense radiant heat from the heating coils, so I manually turned the ovens on and off during the heat-up phase (about 30 seconds on, then 30 off) to prevent the coils from getting bright orange hot. With this 50% duty cycle they only just got to a dull red before I turned the oven off, and were dark before turning back on. It took about 25 minutes to get everything up to 350 degrees F, but after reaching 350 I was able to walk away and let it bake for three hours, then turned the ovens off and let everything cool down with the bottles still in the oven. No cracked bottles, no trouble capping, and so far (knock on wood) no broken bottles. Even though the heating coils did reach the orange hot stage occasionally during the three hour bake, this didn't seem to be a problem, either because the bottles were already hot or because the coils didn't stay on very long (couple of minutes) as the oven heated back up to peak temp. quickly.
I suspect that Nebben's problem may have been the radiant heat from the coils (assuming he was using an electric oven) - even though he only cranked up the temp. by 10 degrees at each step, the actual oven temp. would have overshot that by a considerable margin (my oven temp. control has at least 50 degrees hysteresis); i.e., the heating coils would have stayed on until the upper trip point was reached (maybe 50 degrees or more above the previous set temp.). The same overshoot occurs on heating cycles during the long bake, but the coils probably aren't on as long because the bottles are already hot and aren't soaking up the heat from the air in the oven - also maybe not as much thermal stress because they are already hot?
I'm not sure whether or not I'll stick with this method - it's maybe a little more trouble than other methods, but for my first try at bottling, I wanted things to be as simple as possible on bottling day - just take a bottle out of the box, remove the foil from the mouth, and fill it.
 
Did I mention I get 90% of my bottles from dumpster diving?:cross:

Maybe it was just this one brand of beer from which I reused 4 bottles that were sketchy...most of the batch turned out fine that emerged from the oven.
 
I am intrigued by the idea of heating the bottles in the oven to sanitize them, but I have a few questions about it.

1. Why cover the mouth of the bottle with foil, or is it really as simple as to keep out any particulate matter?

2. Why heat to above 300 degrees? Why not 250 as 212 is boiling and a common method of sterilizing?

I need to do some more research on the structural effects of applying heat to non-tempered glass.
 
I am intrigued by the idea of heating the bottles in the oven to sanitize them, but I have a few questions about it.

1. Why cover the mouth of the bottle with foil, or is it really as simple as to keep out any particulate matter?

2. Why heat to above 300 degrees? Why not 250 as 212 is boiling and a common method of sterilizing?

I need to do some more research on the structural effects of applying heat to non-tempered glass.


1. The foil prevents contamination by airborn or particulate matter. For each bottle, I used a square piece of foil about 3 and one-half inches on a side and placed it over the bottle mouth, pressing it down tightly before placing the bottles in the oven.

2. I got the temperature and time from the podcast interview with the president of 5-star chemicals (maker of StarSan), which can be found at basicbrewing.com.
Basic Brewing? : Home Brewing Beer Podcast and DVD - Basic Brewing Radio? 2007
Scroll down to the March 29, 2007 interview - the oven bit is about halfway through the podcast. He says 350 degrees for 3 and a half hours - I figured three was plenty.

I wouldn't think there would be a structural problem as long as the heating and cooling is slow enough. I would be interested to hear if your research says otherwise.
 
I just loaded up my dishwasher, and realized I have it filled with that rinse aid stuff. I don't have a way to turn it off. Is that going to be an issue?
 
If you put flip top bottles in the dishwasher, do you remove the washer?
 
:mug:You guys are way over thinking. Mix up some StarSan in your bottling bucket, fill your clean bottles with it, dump it back in until you get them all sanitized ( make sure to dip the necks in a little) and put them, inverted in a box with new paper towels lining the bottom. Put your caps in a container of the StarSan solution. Dump your StarSan in a different bucket with a lid for storage and bottle as normal. The deal with sanitizing is to give your yeast the best chance to start working on your brew and not some wild strain taking over before your yeast does.:mug:
 
What about 12 hours at 250 Degrees. On the Palmer website it says to do it for this amount of time. Or is this outdated.
 
the dishwasher is just steaming the bottles right? why not just put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven and heat like the dishwasher does... then turn the oven off and let it cool. wet heat in the oven for about 30 min or an hour. sanitized right?
 
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