Dishwasher to sanitize bottles?

CornyKegs 728
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NiteOwlBrewing said:
Actually, dirty bottles CAN BE sanitized...hell, they can be sterilized. Maybe not in a dishwasher though. You'd just have to pressure cook them long enough or autoclave them. Would they still have crap inside? Yes, but sanitized or even sterilized crap.
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I didn't think about it quite that way. NiteOwlBrewing is correct: you CAN have sterilized crap at the bottom of a beer bottle. I don't WANT stuff like that in my beer. Don't think anyone else does, either. But at least it would be sanitized and sterilized.:eek:

glenn514:mug:
 
Great thread btw

I use the dishwasher. However it warps my PET and Ox-bar bottles, causing caps not to seal correctly. My machine seems not to have a "heat" cycle but dries at end of wash using dry heat.

I use a cleaner/ sterilizer called VWP, it can be used as a dishwasher cleaning agent too so I give bottles a good rinse wit hot water to remove sediment then place in dishwasher. I think although the dishwasher does not get water right into bottles the steam carries it up into them.

To prove my point open your machine mid cycle and stick your hand/head in - the steam is toxic with vwp fumes.

Dont actuallly do this BTW

J
 
I used my dishwasher to sanitize my bottles it is my first time doing so...It does not have a sanitize on it but it gets hot enough to melt plastic....hopefully all goes well....its only been bottled 3 days now so well see
 
My first batch I bottled I used a 25QT hot water canner and steamed the bottles with boiling water for 10 minutes, just using an inch of water in the bottom of the canner. Bottles were way to hot to grab without tongs and dried fast. I did get some water spots on some bottles but it wiped off easily after filling and capping.
Is this overkill or not a good method, I have only seen one other post in 5 pages that even mentioned using a canner to sterilize. I might try the oven method next, on my pre-cleaned bottles because I really like the idea of using heat to sanitize bottles.
I use star-san on the rest of my equipment.
 
I rinse after pouring to clean out the gunk. Then, wash in the dishwasher before bottling. Use no soap unless you are willing to run them through another cycle with no soap to get off all the soap residue. Use no spot-remover in the dishwasher and put it on the "sanitize" cycle if you have one.
 
My dishwasher has a high heat wash and a high heat dry cycle. I've been using this cycle for my last 5 batches without any problems. The beer tastes fine and I haven't seen any nasties grow in a bottle yet.

I thoroughly rinse each bottle after I pour a beer and I will even give them a scrub with the bottle brush sometimes just for peace of mind.
 
FlyGuy said:
I was actually thinking of using SaniClean, or whatever they call that no-foam version of Star San form Five Star Chemicals.
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I would definitely go with the no foam version. I used about once of Star San in my dishwasher once to sanitize my bottles, then left to pick up some priming sugar and caps at the LHBS. It wasn't a pretty sight when I got home. Picture a four foot tall foam blob covering my counter top and half the kitchen. Who knew it could foam THAT much?!!! :eek: At least with a sanitize setting, hot dry and the Star San I know my bottles were clean.

Terje
 
every batch ive done so far, i've cleaned the bottled thoroughly, got all the crap off the bottom and stuff, stuck em in the dish washer with no soap on the highest heat settings (hi-temp wash and heated dry), and bottled right out of the dishwasher. no problems yet!
 
I"ve always used the oven. Start on warm setting for aboutn 15 min, then slowly bring the temp of the oven up every 10-15 min until I reach 200. Leave at 200 for one hour, then shut off and let cool overnight, being careful not to open the oven door until bottling time. Easy and has always been effective.
 
I have been using the dishwasher to clean my bottles after I finish a round. This has worked great for me so far, but I've been using one step to sanitize before bottling.

I read the idea for sanitizing with the dishwasher in the Midwest Supplies kit instructions, and decided to investigate the viability. I'm fairly new to home brewing, but I sold appliances for about 3 years when I was in college. I know that the sanitize cycle on dishwashers is actually intended for sanitizing things like baby bottles. So I guess that if it's good enough for your baby, it should be good enough for your beer!

Looks like I'm about to save myself some time! :ban:
 
I've only ever used the dishwasher for steralising my bottles and haven't had a problem. I put them on a 45 minute quick wash with 1 milton sterilisation tablet in the bottom.
 
I tried this once and it may have been pure coincidence but it is the only batch I've ever had that truly tasted NASTY! I think it was the bottles because some of them did seem to be worse than others (at least the ones I tried before I gave up and dumped the batch). I ran a full cycle but without heat dry and our machine did not have a sanitize setting so maybe that would have helped. The steam when you open the door after it ran was certainly pretty hot though so not sure.
 
Can be difficult for water to get into the bottles though it is good for cleaning but id still use a sanitizer before bottling. Or try the oven.
 
The dishwasher is all I've ever used and had no problems. The last time I did it, I put in a bottle that I just couldn't clean the dried yeast from and it came out sparkling. I guess I'll keep doing it this way until I have a problem with it myself.
 
I've done five batches with the "dishwasher sterilize" method. The bottles are sparkling clean before going in, and I add two cap-fulls of bleach before running a full cycle with a heated dry option; no soap. Works great, as long as you clean the food trap.
 
Rinse aid

As far as I'm concerned, the dishwasher is THE BEST way to sanitize.

My only problem is that SWMBO puts RINSE AID (see above larger version for the vision impaired) into the damned thing at random times and with no warning.

Any trace of (^rinse aid^) will lead to BAND AID BEER.
 
Oregonducks10 said:
Can be difficult for water to get into the bottles though it is good for cleaning but id still use a sanitizer before bottling. Or try the oven.
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I'm not sure the water has to get into the bottles. On the heat/dry setting the heat is all that is needed to sanitize. I read (don't remember where) that it has to reach 170F for 15 minutes to sanitize. I used the probe thermometer and mine hit that.
 
I use the dishwasher .. and no probs yet .. it has a sani setting tho ... just for fun, the last few batches, I have bottled the last couple of the beers in bottles that had only been rinsed out well after use and stored upside down .. then I marked the bottles .. all of those beers have been perfectly fine too .. I think, for me anyway, bottling doesnt have to be perfect ... I dont enter contests yet tho ... and I would never serve anyone but me a beer that I bottled without sanitizing it somehow ...
 
I'm not sure the water has to get into the bottles. On the heat/dry setting the heat is all that is needed to sanitize. I read (don't remember where) that it has to reach 170F for 15 minutes to sanitize. I used the probe thermometer and mine hit that.
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That's pretty much right. The steam will do the majority of sanitizing. As long as steam gets inside the bottles it will work. It doesn't take much of an opening for that to happen either. In my biology research course last semester we would put our jars of growth media into the autoclave to sanitize. Every jar had a cap on it that was left fairly loose to allow steam to enter. Of course the autoclave was pushing out 121*C at 12-15 psi for 15 minutes but the principle is the same.
 
eanmcnulty said:
I'm not sure the water has to get into the bottles. On the heat/dry setting the heat is all that is needed to sanitize. I read (don't remember where) that it has to reach 170F for 15 minutes to sanitize. I used the probe thermometer and mine hit that.
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Yeah be you can stuff in the bottles that rinsing in onestep or something would clear out. But I agree it probably would do the trick.
 
eanmcnulty said:
If you have cleaned your bottles already, the heat cycle works great for sanitizing.

New bottles get a good cleaning and scrubbing with the bottle brush in Oxyclean to wash and remove the labels.
Bottles that have had home brew in them get a rinse right after pouring, and then an Oxyclean wash later.
I dry them in a simple rack I made the holds them upside down for a couple of days.
When they are dry I use small (3"x3") pieces of tin foil to cover the tops, and I store them in the basement.
To me, this is just an every day/week process of being a home brewer. I do small amounts of bottles (12 or so) at a time. That way I have a back up of bottles in the store room. (I wish I had a store room)
When I am ready to bottle, I fill the dishwasher up, and turn it on, using the heat-dry cycle, but no soap.
Then I sit next to the DW and bottle directly for it.
I have been doing this for the past twenty batches, and have had no problem at all.
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This is still my process. The foil keeps the clean bottles from collecting dust...
I am now up to batch 58. Not sure how many since I started using this bottling procedure - maybe 35-45.
I try to make all my procedures as simple as I can, so I can brew a lot and not get burned out with work. Since I have had no bottling problems, I stick with it. If I had to cook the bottles, I don't think I could keep up the rate at which I brew.
As far as kegging goes, I brew small batches (3gal) and those small kgs are expensive. I'm just not interested in stepping up everything to 5g. Plus, I don't want to carry 5g carboys. They is heavy! Also, tap beer in my house is probably a bad idea. Little bit..., little bit more..., little bit more..., oh, just one more...
 
Rinse the bottle after you pour - while the gunk is still soft. Then run through the dishwasher on a sanitize cycle - no soap, no rinse aid. It has always worked for me. (60 batches bottled).
 
I use my Bosch dishwasher to sanitize bottles when I have a large amount. It has an NSF sanitize option which heats the water to 160 degrees. I do run a complete rinse cycle through it before to make sure all detergent is gone.

It's something to set and forget for a while as if you open the door when it first finishes, you are met with steam in the face and bottles too hot to touch.
 
cadarnell said:
thats my same worry with kegging .. haha
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Yes, I figure I would never have a big glass of beer again, just little tastes until I was wasted and couldn't even guess how much I drank. :)
 
eanmcnulty said:
I'm not sure the water has to get into the bottles. On the heat/dry setting the heat is all that is needed to sanitize. I read (don't remember where) that it has to reach 170F for 15 minutes to sanitize. I used the probe thermometer and mine hit that.
Click to expand...

If I remember correctly, NSF guidelines say 170F for only 2 minutes.
 
I rinse my bottles in the sink after pouring. I fill halfway with hot water once, shake and dump. This gets out the yeast and leftover beer. Fill halfway and shake again, store upside down to dry.

Then I throw them in the dishwasher on the sanitize setting shortly before bottling.

Hopefully, this is adequate. No problems yet, but I'm also pretty new to the hobby. Like others said, I'll probably just stick to doing it this way as long as it continues to work for me.
 
I rinse out bottles immediately after use, then soak them (when I get around to it) in a solution of 3 gallons cold water to 1/4 cup bleach to get any residue out (I started doing this when I started noticing a film on the inside of the empty bottles after they'd sat for a day). Soaking takes anywhere from hours to weeks, depending on when I get around to them. I sanitize the clean bottles in the dishwasher on bottling day.
 
I rinse my bottles after ever beer I open, as long as you clean as you go using the dishwasher isn't a bad idea ( no cleaning aids of course ).
 
I've used one step, bleach and rinse, dishwasher and Star san over the years and only had one bad batch. I couldn't pinpoint where that one went wrong, but it was impressive when I opened a bottle and it shot 2' straight up out of the mouth.

It was a sad day. :(
 
I rinse after drinking, then run through dishwasher, put away in cupboard American then put through dishwasher again prior to bottling.

Great thread, just git he idea to bottle from the dishwasher. I used to line them up on the kitchen counter and bottle. But I would run out of space doing this. Don't know why I never thought of this.
 
casperjah said:
I rinse after drinking, then run through dishwasher, put away in cupboard American then put through dishwasher again prior to bottling.

Great thread, just git he idea to bottle from the dishwasher. I used to line them up on the kitchen counter and bottle. But I would run out of space doing this. Don't know why I never thought of this.
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It is so easy. I only brew 3gal batches, so it is pretty quick from start to finish. I get about 24 12-ounce bottles from it. I would guess my fastest bottling time was one hour form pulling out the equipment to complete clean-up, but it is usually an hour fifteen or so.
 
Well I just bottled an IPA 2 weeks ago and it was the first time I used just the dishwasher for sanitary purposes. I only left them in the dishwasher long enough to cool down, so I hope they won't be sour when it comes time to drink in a week or so. However, regardless of the results I will be rinsing them thoroughly prior to the dishwasher and afterwards as well.
 
I'm thinking that just spraying a little starsan from a spray bottle into each bottle, then running the cycle would be pretty safe...then bottling right from the dishwasher. Mine doesn't have a 'sanitize' setting but it has a 'hi temp washing' and air dry cycle. Seems pretty efficient to quickly spray each bottle with star san, load the dishwasher, run it 'hi temp', but maybe air dry is a risk?
 
Your "air dry cycle" is the heating element in the bottom that heats up after the rinse cycle is through. The air in the dishwasher will get plenty hot to sanitize (as stated if the bottle is thoroughly cleaned), that is, if your heating element is working. Rinsing will bring in fresh municipal water to rinse the load most likely washing away any starsan that is placed in the closed or open soap tray.

What I do is wash the dishwasher first then another with starsan and the bottles with the sanitize, high temp, and heated dry cycles.
 
I would advise not putting star San in your dishwasher. Even a little bit foams up like crazy. Don't do it, just don't do it. It foams madly....like a science experiment gone wrong. Did I mention....do not do it!
 
I'm sure 1 tablespoon is fine. I did it thrice. No prob with foam. Now regular liquid kitchen soap, that's a different story.
 
Well, I can say from experience that I used way less than a tablespoon one time and if I had left the house, I would have had a huge mess on my hands. Do it if ya want, but at least pay attention to your machine. Those machines do not like foam, and you can tell when it gets foamy in there by the noise that it makes. At least with mine you are able to do so.
 
Easy way...pre-scrub bottles before putting them in a dishwasher using PBW as a detergent on high heat. Put bottles on a tree that's been dipped in a brew bucket with PBW. Never had a contamination problem.
 

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