Cleaning beer bottles....

Anyone have any tips or good methods they use to clean there beer bottles to speed up the process? I'm basically hand washing everything right now and it's driving me nuts!

Oxy clean in a five gal bucket works great for me. Just let it sit For a day and rinse them off next day.

Rinse them well right after you use them and store them upside down. Then at bottling time all that is needed is sanitation.

I like the rinse after consumption amd oxyclean soak to be safe. Used to use a bottle brush too but have the jet washer now...for $13 I highly suggest it. If that isn't enough I'd get kegs today. Cleaning bottles is a pain but the transportability is essential for me.

these things are great just make sure it FITS your tap before u buy. might find cheaper ones if you search ebay
JET BRASS BOTTLE CARBOY WASHER HOMEBREW BLAST BEER NEW | eBay

scrawbag said:

these things are great just make sure it FITS your tap before u buy.

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You can get faucet adapters at any hardware store.

Bernie Brewer said:

Rinse them well right after you use them and store them upside down. Then at bottling time all that is needed is sanitation.

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This is what I have been doing and it works for me. Make sure you get a bottling tree so that nothing starts growing in the bottom of the bottles. Hopefully I won't be bottling too much in 2012 with the kegerator I plan on building.

Rinse with water (cold is OK) as soon as the bottle is empty. I usually put a couple of ozs in, cover the top with my hand and shake up and down a couple of times to move any stubborn sediment and then rinse quick with a couple of times with a couple of ozs water. Place in dishwasher up-side-down to dry. I do not use any washing detergent, and do not clean with dishwasher.

Once dry(ish) I store upright. They generally do not get left too long before use. Sanitize with Iodophor prior to use.

I never have a problem.

I had some couple year old bottles with old yeasties and whatnot crusted to the bottom. Oxyclean, soap, sanitizer...none of that worked in this instance.

Fight fire with fire, right? I poured a very little bit of beer in the bottoms of each of the perma-crusted bottles and waited about ten minutes. place your thumb over the hole and give it a shake.

All the old crusties were floating in the beer when I poured it out. Some bottles got more shakes than others but I saved all these bottles...then rinse and store upside down, like previously stated...

BTW - the bottles are 500ml Erdinger (bottle carbed) bottles that I brought back(full of beer) from Germany and consumed in 2008....

I use a big plastic tub the kind with rope handles and oxiclean takes labels rught off. Youll find that if you saving commercial bottles some microbreweries use glue that will never come off. If they don't come off during soaking don't bother with them just toss them. I thought I wouldn't bottle again after going to kegs but doing 10gals I bottle half keg half. I find this makes easy to take it on the go as well as keeps me from drinking all of it to fast. Having four taps about 10 feet from the couch makes it wat to convenien.

Edit: if you need bottles try freecycle Yahoo group for your area I got about 1700 over a few months for free if you don't mind that there are some people on this planet that don't rinse their bottles after drinking like us HOMEBREWERS! Need boxes go to the beer store where you get all your hard to find beers they are usually glad to hand a few over. I pick up 6-7 every other time I go in they now even set the most sturdy ones aside for me. Guess it helps that I spend a lot of money there, lol.

scrawbag said:

these things are great just make sure it FITS your tap before u buy. might find cheaper ones if you search ebay
JET BRASS BOTTLE CARBOY WASHER HOMEBREW BLAST BEER NEW | eBay

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the little adapter didn't fit my faucet, I took it over to the local hardware store and they had adapters behind the desk (not home depot, they're useless)

The sprayer is the ****. Also, I have one of those vinninators for sanitation. Totally worth the money.

And I have a strict policy about as-seen-on-tv products but oxyclean is really marvelous. I cant recommend it enough.

Skagdog said:

I had some couple year old bottles with old yeasties and whatnot crusted to the bottom. Oxyclean, soap, sanitizer...none of that worked in this instance.

Fight fire with fire, right? I poured a very little bit of beer in the bottoms of each of the perma-crusted bottles and waited about ten minutes. place your thumb over the hole and give it a shake.

All the old crusties were floating in the beer when I poured it out. Some bottles got more shakes than others but I saved all these bottles...then rinse and store upside down, like previously stated...

BTW - the bottles are 500ml Erdinger (bottle carbed) bottles that I brought back(full of beer) from Germany and consumed in 2008....

Click to expand...

Like dissolves like.

I use 2L soda bottles, I just put some of that pink powder sanitizer stuff I use in my fermenting pale, put a little bit in each bottle, shake it all around, dump it back into the pale, and rinse it out. May not be the best method, but from what I can tell, hasn't done anything bad.

I rinse all bottles as soon as the beer is poured. One quick rinse to dump any sediment, a little bit more water and my thumb over the top and a good shake, then dump. I don't even bother putting them upside down anymore once I've done that because there's nothing left in there except a few drops of tap water which evaporates in an hour or two. Then when I'm ready to bottle all I have to do is sanitize. If you get in the habit of rinsing every bottle when it's poured, and not leave bottles sitting overnight (or a few days!) you won't ever be washing bottles. I also don't use any soap because it takes a long time to get the residue out.