Tips for cleaning super dirty bottles?

[BikerMatt]

So my brewing habit has been on a back burner for nearly a year and I`m trying to get back on the wagon but I have a little problem... You see, some months ago I put all my bottles to soak in my four fermenters in dish washing liquid solution... and kinda forgot about them for a few months. Now when I went to crack the lids open I was greeted with a stench most fowl, like rotten eggs or onions, and it`s hella strong! I tried rinsing out a batch, then scrubbing them thoroughly with a bottle brush and finally washing them on the inside with a faucet mounted bottle pressure washer but there were still black spots and those wretched fruit flies inside some bottles. Right now I have a batch soaking in water-bleach solution about 40:1 strong as the bottle suggested for cleaning equipment but I`m still suspicious about whether I will get all the crap out of them (for some reason the bottle also said to avoid contact with glass surfaces for longer than 30mins but I`m planning to soak a full 24h regardless, dumb?)

Any tips or hints greatly appreciated! I got closer to 200 bottles so replacing them all would get too costly.

 

[crane]

Soak em in hot PBW for 24hrs, then rinse with hot water using your faucet mounted bottle washer. Hot as in it hurts your hand when submerged in the water for more than 2 seconds.

 

[BikerMatt]

First time I`ve heard of such product, quick googling says there`s one shop in Finland that sells "five stars PBW" but I`d have to order it...

We`ll put that up as a maybe, a working solution most probly but creates some issues like I don`t have hot water in the garage (unless of course I boil some)

 

[crane]

Didn't realize you were outside the US. In that case you can search for homemade PBW on here. Might be able to get oxiclean easier over there.

 

[BikerMatt]

Hmm did some googling and turns out most powdered cleaners for brewing equipment, including oxyclean, are sodium percarbonate based... so going from there an easy, if not quite as powerful though should be easier to rinse out, solution would be normal dish washing powder.

 

[Soulshine2]

So my brewing habit has been on a back burner for nearly a year and I`m trying to get back on the wagon but I have a little problem... You see, some months ago I put all my bottles to soak in my four fermenters in dish washing liquid solution... and kinda forgot about them for a few months. Now when I went to crack the lids open I was greeted with a stench most fowl, like rotten eggs or onions, and it`s hella strong! I tried rinsing out a batch, then scrubbing them thoroughly with a bottle brush and finally washing them on the inside with a faucet mounted bottle pressure washer but there were still black spots and those wretched fruit flies inside some bottles. Right now I have a batch soaking in water-bleach solution about 40:1 strong as the bottle suggested for cleaning equipment but I`m still suspicious about whether I will get all the crap out of them (for some reason the bottle also said to avoid contact with glass surfaces for longer than 30mins but I`m planning to soak a full 24h regardless, dumb?)

Any tips or hints greatly appreciated! I got closer to 200 bottles so replacing them all would get too costly.

First of all, whenever I am collecting my bottles, I pour it into the desired vessel from my beer glass collection or just a frosty mug out of the freezer...I triple rinse the bottle with hot tap water and drain it upside down in the kitchen sink dish tray . The morning before bottling day IF there are labels on them , I soak them in a hot bath of Oxyclean in my mash tun(holds heat and holds the right amount of water to drown the bottles past the necks. After about 20 minutes,I give them a good shake so the insides gets cleaner than the initial post-pour rinse. Most of the labels pretty much fall off, some need a little more help by way of a stiff poly scrub brush. The day of bottling ,I make up a batch of hot star san and soak them a few minutes and again turn up to drain while I wait for my priming sugar water to cool before adding to my bottling bucket. Never had an issue with any foul smells or chunks of goo. Soap is a beer head killer. You'd be better off with kosher salt .

 

[BikerMatt]

I got my "normal" method pretty well sorted, I sanitize my bottles with a pneumatic sprayer full of starsan solution, gets a nice mist inside the bottles and I got the tap mounted washer and a dedicated drying tree in the utility room, this situation however has developed due to me being a lazy c**t and leaving the non-rinsed bottles soaking in water for months on end... yea dummy me but trying to pick up the pieces now and get back to brewing (and TBH as cheap as possible as I`m on a tight budget)

If the clorine test goes south gonna get some oxyclean/equivalent, I found there`s similar products sold in Lidl too.

When I get this mess sorted I gotta pick up the habit of rinsing right after each pour to prevent this from ever happening again...

 

[GnenieGone]

Try a caustic product like Draino.

 

[wilserbrewer]

40-1 isn’t all that strong imo...
I would double or triple that and let them soak...

Bleach bomb kills almost anything and cleans glass pretty well without leaving deposits.

 

[wilserbrewer]

As said above, draino, but that is raising the stakes near nuclear lol

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Hmm did some googling and turns out most powdered cleaners for brewing equipment, including oxyclean, are sodium percarbonate based... so going from there an easy, if not quite as powerful though should be easier to rinse out, solution would be normal dish washing powder.

I use oxyclean for normal cleaning, but have heard that it will leave deposits on glass if left to soak for longer than 30 minutes. I believe there are ingredients in PBW that allow it to be OK for soaking overnight.

 

[mongoose33]

How to deal with super-dirty bottles? Here's how you handle it:

You get yourself a 3-pound hammer; if you can't find one, a 2 1/2-pound hammer will do.

Lay those bottles down on a soft surface, such as a folded up tied-rag rug. Put on eye protection, grab the hammer, and strike a smart blow right in the middle of the fat side. This should shatter the bottle and prevent you from ever using it in bottling.

Repeat as necessary.

 

[ITV]

If it were my bottles I would through them out.

 

[madscientist451]

Just recycle really cruddy bottles. Treat yourself to a 12 pack of decent beer now and then and you'll never run out of bottles.
Also, get in the habit of rinsing out the bottles right away after you pour the beer.

 

[MajorJC]

I stored some 1 gallon glass jugs for about 3 years and they got really dirty inside. They had fruit fly pupa cases stuck really well to the inside of the jugs. These jugs resisted all my attempts to clean them out with hot pressurized water and bottle brushes and soaking. I decided to try an abrasive scrub with very coarse kosher salt. I put a cup of kosher salt into a jug and filled it half full of hot water and shook the heck out of it. After about one minute of shaking and swirling around the jug looked cleaner than it did when it was new. Since then I have also used this method to clean larger glass carboys and I works just as well so I imagine it should work on smaller bottles also, just with less salt.

Hope this helps.

 

[Kent88]

Fill with hot water, place in a low oven.

 

[BikerMatt]

If it were my bottles I would through them out.

Honestly, I'd be tempted to do that too if I had more money but bottles aren't cheap here and I'm planning to do a triple brew this saturday so got three weeks and change to be ready for them. If this totally backfires I'm gonna chuck em and replace with full ones, thing just is the country has pretty much moved to cans so 24 cases of glass bottles are rare and they only sell the most horrid bulk crap in those, honestly tastes close to water...

Thanks for the tips so far, if clorine doesn't do it gonna try oxiclean/closest equivalent I can get, if still no go then it's off to recycling.

 

[FatDragon]

My father in law doesn't rinse his beer bottles and they'll sit in a corner for years growing mold, gathering fruit flies, getting way more disgusting than should be allowed.

Every once in a while when I'm desperate for bottles, I'll take what he's got. I give each bottle a quick rinse, shake, and dump to remove some of the more egregious solids, put about a teaspoon of sodium percarbonate in each one, then submerge them in hot (>80C) water for a couple hours. From there, they get a scrubdown to remove whatever label residue is still left, another rinse and shake, a shot from a bottle brush mounted on a drill, then a final upside-down rinse from a pressure nozzle on my hose. It's several hours of work to get ~100 bottles done, but it's nice to not have to worry about scrounging up bottles for a long while thereafter.

 

[BikerMatt]

Drill mounter bottle brush, now there's an idea.

 

[Soulshine2]

As said above, draino, but that is raising the stakes near nuclear lol

I wouldnt use draino ... No, just no.

 

[Soulshine2]

I stored some 1 gallon glass jugs for about 3 years and they got really dirty inside. They had fruit fly pupa cases stuck really well to the inside of the jugs. These jugs resisted all my attempts to clean them out with hot pressurized water and bottle brushes and soaking. I decided to try an abrasive scrub with very coarse kosher salt. I put a cup of kosher salt into a jug and filled it half full of hot water and shook the heck out of it. After about one minute of shaking and swirling around the jug looked cleaner than it did when it was new. Since then I have also used this method to clean larger glass carboys and I works just as well so I imagine it should work on smaller bottles also, just with less salt.

Hope this helps.

you and I think alike. Years ago, for whatever reason I found it , I ran across instructions for how to make a seemingly clean glass "beer ready" since any film of soap residue will affect/kill any head of foam on a poured beer,not to mention any soap residue will also affect taste, even slightly. Very simply, (kosher)salt scrub and hot water.

 

[BikerMatt]

I wouldnt use draino ... No, just no.

...pure sodium hydroxide I presume? Yea that stuff aint getting anywhere near anything I plan to eat or drink out of ..

 

[BikerMatt]

So after we we got the boys to bed I popped in the garage tonight, went full ATGATT with a thick cowhide welding apron, rubber gloves, full face mask and my 18v deWalt drill equipped with a cut bottle brush, selected the few worst fly infested/most slimy stinky bottles I left on top and let 'er rip. Sparkly clean, not a hint of anything nasty left! Just need to buy a new bottle brush as I cut it a wee bit short for the 0.5L longnecks, literally rinse and repeat about x200.

Result!

 

[Soulshine2]

...pure sodium hydroxide I presume? Yea that stuff aint getting anywhere near anything I plan to eat or drink out of ..

exactly.

 

[ITV]

Honestly, I'd be tempted to do that too if I had more money but bottles aren't cheap here and I'm planning to do a triple brew this saturday so got three weeks and change to be ready for them. If this totally backfires I'm gonna chuck em and replace with full ones, thing just is the country has pretty much moved to cans so 24 cases of glass bottles are rare and they only sell the most horrid bulk crap in those, honestly tastes close to water...

Thanks for the tips so far, if clorine doesn't do it gonna try oxiclean/closest equivalent I can get, if still no go then it's off to recycling.

I rather toss questionable bottles then dump beer infected by bad bottles. You might consider kegging if that is a viable option for you.

 

[GnenieGone]

Basicly I rinse 3x after drinking. Solves 99% of the issues.

 

[BikerMatt]

I rather toss questionable bottles then dump beer infected by bad bottles. You might consider kegging if that is a viable option for you.

Kegging is not an option, no space no money. After the test so far I'm fairly confident the clorine soaking will get them sorted

 

[AnthonyTD]

...pure sodium hydroxide I presume? Yea that stuff aint getting anywhere near anything I plan to eat or drink out of ..

Why is this? Sodium hydroxide is used extensively in the food industry as the go to cleaner. It is also used directly on a number of food products like ice cream, chocolate, pretzels, olives and the list goes on....

Sure it is corrosive as hell, but it also dilutes well in water and is washed away easily.

If you want to wash your bottles quick nothing will beat sodium hydroxide, just be careful in high concentrators it will damage the bottle glass.

 

[BikerMatt]

Really? I was not aware of this. Well I already bought four bottles of bleach and the 40:1 mix seems to do what I expect of it so I should be good there.

 

[Soulshine2]

Basicly I rinse 3x after drinking. Solves 99% of the issues.

99.9% and I agree

 

[Soulshine2]

Really? I was not aware of this. Well I already bought four bottles of bleach and the 40:1 mix seems to do what I expect of it so I should be good there.

4 bottles, how much are you making up at a time....the 40:1 is 40 parts water to 1 bleach...

 

[BikerMatt]

I have a stainless sink in the garage which is around 45L to the brim so the mix is around 40:1-ish when I fill that with cold water, pour in a bottle and then start sinking in bottles.

 

[Soulshine2]

your sink is 45L , my mash tun is 43 quarts...I clean my bottles in my mash tun, stand bottles up , make up my hot oxyclean and start pouring it in and around until the bottles are filled up and submerged . Let soak 30 minutes , start scrubbing off labels and shaking to get the oxy going. I really dont need to do this much for the insides ,its more for label removal. I already triple rinse right after pouring my beers so theres really no yeast or other gunk inside.
If I had bare bottles already,which I do ,I keep them separated in another box with the cardboard divider upside down so bugs and critters cant get in, all they really need is hot star san soak and a good shake and drain on bottling day.
Good to go.

 

[BikerMatt]

I'm normally not going through this much trouble either but keep in mind these bottles have been soaking in water, with yeast and flies and whatnot, inside them for months and are covered in stinky rot slime inside and out. I have enough bottles for one brew in the store shelf, cleaned and capped with dedicated bottle storing cap thingies (red plastic caps) primed and ready for filling after a quick starsan spray too but I need to sort this bog of bottles before I can brew more than the one batch.

 

[Soulshine2]

I understand. I keep a corner of my basement stacked with a batch of bottles at the ready.

 

[BikerMatt]

Operation Anti-Stink in full swing. For some reason some bottles are left with a faint clorine odour no matter how much I rinse them but it can be it comes from the outside surface of older more scratched up bottles as some rinse up odourless so not worrying about that too much. Also put some brewing stuff to soak for tomorrow's brew-a-thon. 0:30 now, I'm beat, few beers and off to bed for tomorrow.

My store corner, at best the bottom shelf has held three bubbling fermenters while all the shelves above been filled with conditioning bottles. Looks like an abandoned olympic arena now but planning to remedy that in the immediate future.

 

[BikerMatt]

Yup, chlorine (bleach) seems to do the trick. At about halfway mark of the cleanup project and even the dirtiest most bug infested bottles turn sparkly clean after a couple days of soaking in bleach water, then a thorough rinse and a couple more days to vent the chlorine odor off the bottles. I checked and that sink is not a 45 liter after all, it`s a 65 liter so the solution is even more diluted than stated before but still seems to do the trick just fine!