General bottle cleaning techniques

[bigken462]

Hello guys, a co-worker of mine is letting me use about 5-6 cases of bottles he has been storing. Many will need the labels peeled, and that’s ok. I can deal with the labor.

My worry is, since these have been stored in a shed for a while, aside from a good jet wash and scrub from a bottle brush, is there anything else I should do before using Starsan before bottling day - which will be Saturday I hope. lol

He recommends a solution of Oxyclean and I trust his judgment, but I was also kinda wanting to see what other methods you guys may be using. I would imagine, after a few cases of scrubbing, I'll be trying to come up with a better method. lol

I would rather not trash my house, so I'm hoping I can make this a garage project.

Ken

 

[Black Island Brewer]

Hello guys, a co-worker of mine is letting me use about 5-6 cases of bottles he has been storing. Many will need the labels peeled, and that’s ok. I can deal with the labor.

My worry is, since these have been stored in a shed for a while, aside from a good jet wash and scrub from a bottle brush, is there anything else I should do before using Starsan before bottling day - which will be Saturday I hope. lol

He recommends a solution of Oxyclean and I trust his judgment, but I was also kinda wanting to see what other methods you guys may be using. I would imagine, after a few cases of scrubbing, I'll be trying to come up with a better method. lol

I would rather not trash my house, so I'm hoping I can make this a garage project.

Ken

+1 on the oxyclean soak in HOT water. It will really lift the labels, get the gunk out. Then scrub and jet wash. Then just keep them clean and rinsed out between uses and you won't have to oxy them again.

 

[Moerdertaktiken]

Honestly I've been throwing my bottles into the dishwasher and running it without soap. Does an excellent job of sanitizing. Just make sure the bottles are clean beforehand. I haven't heard of anyone else doing this, but it's worked for me dozens of times.

 

[Hello]

The problem is that the water isn't likely reaching inside. It may work if they weren't gross to begin with, but I'd soak, brush, and jet wash by hand first.

 

[bigken462]

I have both a 120qt and 60qt pot at home, I think in the morning when I get to the house, I'm going premix some oxyclean, then place as many as I can in the pot with as hot of water (130*) as I can get from the hot water heater and let them soak for a few hours. Late this evening after a few hours of nappy, the water should be cooled off enough that I can start pushing the scrub brush in them.

Lol, now I wish I had a good battery for my cordless drill. I bet if I were to put a scrub brush in the chuck, I could make quick work out of 6 cases of bottles. Lol

Getting the labels off on the other hand might require a bit more patience.

 

[TimelessCynic]

For labels, yes soak in oxy clean and warm water. I then soak in water and household bleach solution. I use a lot of bleach. Rinse with tap water then put in dishwasher on heat cycle. The chlorine in the bleach and in the tap water vanishes when dried.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I have both a 120qt and 60qt pot at home, I think in the morning when I get to the house, I'm going premix some oxyclean, then place as many as I can in the pot with as hot of water (130*) as I can get from the hot water heater and let them soak for a few hours. Late this evening after a few hours of nappy, the water should be cooled off enough that I can start pushing the scrub brush in them.

Lol, now I wish I had a good battery for my cordless drill. I bet if I were to put a scrub brush in the chuck, I could make quick work out of 6 cases of bottles. Lol

Getting the labels off on the other hand might require a bit more patience.

If you can beg, borrow or steal a jet washer, you will never regret it!

 

[LibertyBrewer]

I cut the end off a bottle brush and chuck it in a drill. It works fast. You should be able to do a couple cases of bottles in about a half hour.

 

[smccarter]

If the bottles have been taken care of - meaning that they get thoroughly wrinsed immediately after beer has been poured out of it, then allowed to drip dry over the next day or so... Commercial beer bottles or bottles you've been using....

Store the wrinsed and dried bottles for as long as you want, but cover them somehow. I usually just box them up.

When you're ready to use them again, pull them out of storage, inspect for any type of grunge that may exits - should be none. If something is visible in the bottle, use your bottle brush with warm soapy water to clean the bottle... then wrinse.

Once all of the bottles have been inspected, put them in the dishwasher and run through a complete cycle. As soon as the drying cycle finishes and all of the bottles are wet and hot, take them out of the dishwasher. If any of the bottles had labels on them, the labels are ready to be removed. The dish washer makes label removal an extremely simple process. Pull the lables off and run the bottle under warm tap water and use a scrubbing sponge to remove any glue that's still on the bottle.

Get a bottling tree with the sanitizing wrinser on top. Fill the wrinser with your sanitizing solution and sanitize the bottles. Let them dry on the tree.

I do all of this right at the time that I want to bottle beer. I'll start the dish washing process the night before, finish up the day of bottling - depending how many bottles I need - and sanitize just before bottling begins.

That's been my process for 10+ years. May not be the absolute best way, but it's simple and it works. I've yet to have a bottle infection (knock on wood).

 

[bigken462]

Yeah, I should be shot for not already ordering one. My LHBS has the one with the short hose on it that has a jet for two bottles. Seems like it sits in the bottom on the sink. Kinda overpriced, but before I ruin 5 gallons of my first brew, I'll ante up and buy it later today.

Got home and sorted a few of these in the rain, but I guess even a rainy day screwing around with dirty beer bottles is still better than a day at work. I came home with two loaner 6 gallon carboys. My weekend just opened up a bit more. lol Now if I just had the play money to buy some stuff to make another batch.

It took some wrangling and near scalded hands, but I got those two flats of bottles soaking.

Time for a nap. Not going to waste this good sleeping weather. Hope to have 48-50 of these full with a Pumpkin Spice Porter tomorrow. Many of the labels were already falling off. Maybe I'll get lucky and the glue will come off w/o too much scrubbing.

 

[bigken462]

If any of the bottles had labels on them, the labels are ready to be removed.

You must have better luck than I do. If I were think about doing this, my drains would stop up before I had a chance to open up the door. Have you not had problems with the paper coming off in the wash and clogging up the drains in the bottom of your washer?

 

[smccarter]

You must have better luck than I do. If I were think about doing this, my drains would stop up before I had a chance to open up the door. Have you not had problems with the paper coming off in the wash and clogging up the drains in the bottom of your washer?

I've had them come off, but never had them clog the drain. It's how I've always done it. I've got hundreds of bottles... all of them had commercial labels on them at one time. I tried to soak and scrape for a very short time. I gave up and went for the easy way - the dish washer.

 

[rideincircles]

I usually do the PBW or oxyclean hot water soak overnight and scrub to get off the labels. If they have any issues with sticky material left, then I will soak them in a 2x starsan solution for a couple days which will dissolve most sticky labels. It will also dissolve the ink from Stone brewing bottles. Just be sure to scrub off the sticky residue when cold in the starsan vat. Hot water seems to reactivate the stickyness.

I left some bottles in my starsan for too long though (over a month), and just chunked them since it left a white film that's near impossible to get off.

 

[bigken462]

I just put the last of about 130 up to dry. I would have to say the Oxyclean done a fantastic job. The things were falling off so fast I could barely hold onto the bottle. A few might have needed just a touch of scrubbing, but nothing like I thought it was going to be like.

Got the dishwasher running now on a sanitizer cycle for those that I'm going to use on this Porter. The jet wash that has the double jets actually worked out better than I thought it would.

What sucks about all this. Despite washing all those bottles, I still got dishes to do.

 

[unionrdr]

I do momma's dishes & hard pan/pot scrubbing first. Makes her so happy when I do that for her. Makes me feel good about brewing at that point. Give a little to get a little. I soak'em in PBW solution overnight & the labels slip off by themselves & the glue dissolves or gets real soft. A bottle brush & a Dobie brand scrubber real quick & they get rinsed & onto the bottle tree to dry. Then into covered craft beer boxes till needed. Then the vinator on top of the bottle tree half full of Starsan right before filling.

 

[atoughram]

I've had really good luck with a warm ammonia solution overnight to peal the labels, then oxiclean to get the gunk out and star-san to get the bugs out. Some of the new glues used on labels must not be water soul able though, because they can be a pain to get clean while some are easy..

 

[bigken462]

50 bottles of Spiced Porter capped and put away, 5 gallons of Kolsch transferred, equipment and kitchen cleaned and now time to channel surf for some football.

I was a lil sloppy and disorganized at first, but after a few bottles I got a good rhythm going. Not to bad. I will have to admit that using the jet wash that sits on the bottom on the sink works a ton better than I thought it would. At least with that, I don't have to worry about putting too much pressure on the faucet.

Thanks for all the replies earlier.

Ken