Sterlizing Bottles

[billism]

Hello,

This is my first post in thsi forum. I am new here as well as home brewing. I just started my first batch yesterday. 5 gallons of bock from malt extracts. The airlock was bubbling nicely this morning. =)

My question is this: What is the easiest way to sterilize 52 bottles? I have a 21qt enamel-surfaced kettle I can use to boil. Is that the way to go?

Thanks!

 

[drengel]

use sanitizing solution, rinse, dry on some sort of sanitized rack. boiling them isn't needed.

 

[billism]

Thanks for the rely. So it should be fine to rinse the bottles with warm tap water, after I clean the bottles say with a bleach/water mixture?

 

[Sasquatch]

I think so. But others think not. You are relying on your water being clean, if you do so (and mine is clean enough, apparently). I tend to think of the infection causing beasties as being more airborne than waterborne. If there's bacteria in my water that is going to destroy my beer, then I don't want to drink the water.

There are "no rinse" sanitizers too.

 

[loopmd]

Big difference between sterilizing and sanitizing. Your goal is to sanitize. You can do that many different ways and everyone has a very passionate reason they do it their way. We all (mostly!) end up with good results. You can use bleach/water or you can use the many commercial no rinse sanitizers. As far as the easiest, I am not sure. My bottles are very clean to start out with, then I dip/soak them in bleach/water, then run them through my dishwasher cycle. (without soap or anything) I like the dishwasher as it is a nice bottle rack. All this is done the day of bottling. I take them from the dishwasher, fill them up, cap 'em and put them away.


loop

 

[billism]

Cool, thanks much.

 

[Mr_Turtlehead]

billism, you'll find that there are many ways to achieve your goal. And people can get quite passionate about their preferred method as you can see in this infamous thread. Disregard where the thread goes, but glean all of the approaches and decide which method is for you.

 

[ajf]

The dishwasher is an excellent way of sanitizing. (It does it by heat.)
Use no detergents or anti-spotting additives, and use the heated drying cycle.
Unfortunately, my dishwasher does not hold the 20 - 24 oz bottles that I use when I bottle, so I use iodophor because it is quick and doesn't require rinsing.

-a.

 

[uglygoat]

iodophor... imho is the best. it's basically a contact killer/sanitizer and you don't need to rinse it.

i rinse the bottles out with hot hot water after i've poured their contents out. if i have a few that are particularly gritty cause i don't always rinse em right away, they go into a bucket with either bleach, or a oxyclean type solution, get scrubbed then rinsed out again.

on bottling day i fill up a bucket with water and the iodophor solution and let them soak for a few minutes, pull them out, shake em out, and fill em.

 

[RichBrewer]

The bottle of iodophor that I have says to air dry the item before use. Will it hurt if there are droplets of the solution in the bottles when they are filled?

 

[El Pistolero]

The bottle of iodophor that I have says to air dry the item before use. Will it hurt if there are droplets of the solution in the bottles when they are filled?

No.xxxxxxxxxx

 

[SteveM]

In all the hubbub of that other thread, I never got around to mentioning how I do this. It works for me.

Rinse all bottles thoroughly after using them to make sure there is no trace of sediment. Let them dry upside down and pt them away. On bottling day, wash them in the dishwasher with no soap or bleach or anything. Immerse them (I usually do maybe four to six at a time) in a no-rinse solution. Then give them one last tap water rinse (I don't trust those chemicals even though everyone says they are safe). Fill 'em up and then (after a suitable interval) drain them back and repeat the entire process. This last step is the single most crucial to the process, regardless of what anyone else says. Without it, you run the risk of not having bottles for your next batch.