Bottle cleaning made easy....no sh$&

Bluemarshbrewery · Jan 24, 2015

New to the forum but have been brewing for about 6 years. It did not take long to figure cleaning bottles really is tedious work nor did it take long to figure the solution as I had many years in restaurant exp. My solution was to purchase and extra wash arm for my dishwasher, drill small holes every 1/4in. In each arm from center to outer end. This arm was only used for washing/ sanitizing my bottles. I use one step. After drinking a bottle I would rinse bottle and let drip dry then store. When bottling day came I would first change out dishwasher arm to the one I modified, plug the pipe to the upper arm that way all pressure went through the bottom arm. I could load about 24 bottles and a scoop of one step. Set DW on rinse cycle and wash for 10 to 15 minutes, pull bottles out set on tray and cover with plastic wrap and repeat for next batch. I even tested with moldy bottles and worked out fine. Bottles would cool as I set up the rest of the bottling procedure. I have bottled dozens of batches using this method. The cleaner they go into the DW the more confident you can be in the result. The cost of a replacement arm for most DW's about $30.00.

kh54s10 · Jan 24, 2015

Do you really think the wash water truly gets into the bottles with enough force to lean all the inside surface.

Maybe so since you say it worked on moldy bottles. I am skeptical though.

I think you are successful by rinsing them before the wash and it being hot enough to sanitize.

Bluemarshbrewery · Jan 25, 2015

Yes. I believe the water has plenty of pressure to clean. I was skeptical at first as well. No one wants too lose a batch of brew. With the holes so close together the spray easily gets up into the bottles. I do not rinse before the wash but after I drink a beer and let bottle drip dry as I am sure most of us do to lessen the chore. I have used this method on two different DW's so far with very good results. You do need to read your DW manual to see how much water the DW uses on each cycle. I used the rinse cycle because it ran the longest before draining. A small investment that for me yielded very good results.