Bottle cleaning secrets, what are they!

[rogercurran]

I am busy prepping for brew day and because I live in a small town in South Africa is hard to come by decent new brown beer bottles. I've resorted to refurb'ing bottles that I have bought at the liquor store.

Has anyone got tips on how best to remove labels, clean the inside etc? Any tricks or shortcuts appreciated.

Ive tried using benzine but in some cases it seems to have just spread the sticker glue all over the bottle

 

[tgolanos]

If you can get your hands on sodium percarbonate, you'll be able to remove labels and clean your bottles with one good soaking.

Take a look at this link, it's what I use. I generally soak my bottles in the sink with some hot water and a teaspoon of the cleaner. Labels come off after about 15 minutes and any gunk comes right off the insides.

http://kegking.com.au/cleaners-and-sanitising-equipment/100-pure-sodium-percarbonate-1kg-bag.html

If I don't have enough bottles to fill the sink, I just make sure to rinse the bottles out with warm water really well before putting them away. Then, come bottling day, all I have to do is rinse, sanitize, and fill.

 

[FatDragon]

Sodium Percarbonate is a good one - if you have oxyclean or any variant thereof in SA it's essentially the main ingredient. A hot water soak with the stuff will take care of most bottles, just make sure to give them a rinse or two afterwards.

Some labels, such as vinyl labels or painted-on labels, and some sticker glue will still give you trouble. In that case, you can toss them, give them the hot water and steel wool treatment, or use them with the original labels.

As @tgolanos said, percarbonate will clean the insides nicely as well. Technically it will also sanitize them since it breaks down to sodium carbonate (a natural detergent) and hydrogen peroxide (a sanitizer) in water, but once you've rinsed off the residue of the sodium carbonate you probably want to do another sanitizing step before bottling.

If you can't get percarbonate, a simple hot water soak will take care of a lot of stuff, even better with washing soda (that very same sodium carbonate) or baking soda added.

Not so relevant to labels, but the most important step when it comes to cleaning bottles for reuse is to rinse them out relatively soon after drinking. If you rinse all the crap out of the bottle before anything dries on the glass and make sure that nothing else gets in (i.e. store them upside down or with something covering the mouth), you'll just need a quick spritz of sanitizer before bottling and you're in the clear.

edit: also, ten dollarydoos for a kilogram? Dang! It can be hard to track stuff down here in China, but when you buy directly from the source, it sure is a damn sight cheaper! I buy kilos for about 1/3 that price or could get a 25 kilo sack for less than half the price per kilo of my current price if I needed to use that much...

 

[kristiismean]

and always rinse your bottles after pouring a beer, this will make your life easier.

I just soak in hot water, peel the labels, bottle brush them, rinse, inspect (light through bottom of bottle while looking into the neck for bottom gunk, then into the dishwasher for a no soap, hi temp sani rinse cycle with heated dry. Then into milk crates, cover the tops and stack em (25 bottles per milkcrate, no clinking) and they are ready to go for bottling day.

Then i sanitize them right before filling.

 

[arcorey]

I made a bottle brush that seems to work well. It is a wooden dowel rod I chuck up in a cordless drill. The tip has a small flat head wood screw holding two small pieces of Velcro in a cross fashion. I shove it in the bottle and scrub the bottom with the bottle about 1/3 full of PBW water. Tilt it on side and spin full speed and remove the brush. If the Velcro is cut long enough, it will touch the sides as well. Much easier to get in and out of the bottle neck than brushes.

 

[motosapiens]

and always rinse your bottles after pouring a beer, this will make your life easier.

this.

i carefully rinse my bottles immediately after pouring, then all I do is sanitize in star-san before bottling. I very rarely have to use a bottle brush, but I did have a couple batches of hefeweizen with red wheat that left some residue on the sides. Never experienced that with white wheat.

as far as labels, i find that soaking in some kind of detergent helps, but it also helps to figure out what commercial brands have easily removed labels, and only save those. I've had good luck with getting labels off of german imports in half-liter bottles (no surprise since I think they still re-use those bottles in germany).

 

[Kent88]

I also agree with @kristiismean with the rinse your bottles recommendation.

When I get bottles from people who don't do a good job rinsing them and keeping them away from bugs I usually rinse well, fill with hot water, and put in an oven set for just below boiling. I'm trying to keep it hot enough that pasteurization works, but I don't want a lot of water to evaporate away. If I need to remove labels after that I top off the bottles with more water and put the bottles into a kettle with some hot water (155F) with PBW cleaner (which you might not have), enough that the water level is just a little below the top of the bottle. I then let it soak until the temperature is about 115F, cool enough I can handle the bottles but hot enough that the adhesive loosens up, and I take the bottles out one by one and remove the labels as I go.

YMMV depending on the adhesive on the bottles available to you.

Then I store them someplace away from bugs and varments until bottling day when I just use a simple no-rinse sanitizer.

I have made bottle cleaning into a ridiculous chore, but I am dang confident that if there is ever an issue with my beer getting contaminated that it wont be from poor bottle cleaning.

 

[dstockwell]

I rinse mine after use, then before bottling they go through the dishwasher (no soap) sani-rinse cycle.

 

[violinguy]

I thoroughly rinse every bottle right after I've poured it until no more beer suds come out (and then a little more lol). Then I soak them in oxy-clean (or equivalent, like PBW or 1-step) for several hours. This cleans the inside (not sanitized yet) and the labels just float right off. Then I soak the bottles in sanitizer when bottling. Ever since I upgraded my bottle cleaning routine, my beer has tasted better. Just like above, rinse thoroughly after pouring/drinking and cleaning them will be so much easier.

 

[rogercurran]

I'm going to check this out thanks for the tip! do you need to use protective clothing? The one thing I worry about using benzine is covering my kitchen in chemical.

 

[rogercurran]

So a hot water soak and baking soda is an option? Sounds like a neat solution, thanks

 

[tgolanos]

I'm going to check this out thanks for the tip! do you need to use protective clothing? The one thing I worry about using benzine is covering my kitchen in chemical.

Most (if not all) homebrew-grade cleaners are non-corrosive and non-toxic. PBW, sodium percarbonate, star-san, they're all safe to use without protective clothing. If you have incredibly sensitive skin, maybe wear gloves, but none of these cleaners will do any harm. I'm allergic to just about everything and I don't have to wear any gloves when cleaning my brew gear. My wife even has me clean our kitchen appliances with my brew cleaners every now and then.

@FatDragon yeah, 10 dollarydoos is the going rate. It's expensive in Australia, but so is everything - a case of crap beer can easily be $40! I could buy a 25kg sack of sodium percarbonate for about $6/kg but I don't have the room to store that puppy.

 

[FatDragon]

@FatDragon yeah, 10 dollarydoos is the going rate. It's expensive in Australia, but so is everything - a case of crap beer can easily be $40! I could buy a 25kg sack of sodium percarbonate for about $6/kg but I don't have the room to store that puppy.

How are grain prices? Most of the domestically-malted grain in China (not great quality, but still capable of making very good beer) is shipped over from Australia, apparently as feed-grade barley, and malted here in China. It goes for as low as 5 yuan (~$0.70 USD) a kilogram. I imagine China-based homebrewers are getting the better end of that deal...

 

[ten80]

I use the hot water from my wort chiller to fill a cooler with oxyclean, then soak bottles in the cooler overnight. This is a great source of cheap hot water be careful to not put water over about 170F into a cooler or you risk melting or warping the plastic.

The next day, I put a bottle brush on a power drill and give each bottle 10-15 seconds of high-speed scrubbing, then rinse in a second cooler full of warm water and sanitize. I can do about 40-60 bottles with paper labels an hour this way. I've given up on bottles with plasticized labels unless they are really cool bottles.

 

[tgolanos]

I use the hot water from my wort chiller to fill a cooler with oxyclean, then soak bottles in the cooler overnight. This is a great source of cheap hot water be careful to not put water over about 170F into a cooler or you risk melting or warping the plastic.

The next day, I put a bottle brush on a power drill and give each bottle 10-15 seconds of high-speed scrubbing, then rinse in a second cooler full of warm water and sanitize. I can do about 40-60 bottles with paper labels an hour this way. I've given up on bottles with plasticized labels unless they are really cool bottles.

This. Any way you can recycle water to use in your brewing and/or for cleaning is always a good move. I bought a bottle tree and washer attachment so all I need is 1L of hot water to clean out 12-18 bottles. Beats the amount of water I was probably using out of the tap!

How are grain prices? Most of the domestically-malted grain in China (not great quality, but still capable of making very good beer) is shipped over from Australia, apparently as feed-grade barley, and malted here in China. It goes for as low as 5 yuan (~$0.70 USD) a kilogram. I imagine China-based homebrewers are getting the better end of that deal...

US$0.70 is just under AU$1.00, I'd kill for that price! I can get a 25kg sack of export pils malt locally for $2.49/kg, which is a damn steal as far as I think. 12.5kg bags usually go for about $3.00-$4.00/kg for base malts, depending on brand. Hops and yeast are pricey, though. 100g of hops usually runs about $10 and liquid yeasts are about $12-$14 for new vials. I usually wait and buy "expired" yeasts that are half price. Dry yeast can be $6 or it can be $12.

 

[rogercurran]

Most (if not all) homebrew-grade cleaners are non-corrosive and non-toxic. PBW, sodium percarbonate, star-san, they're all safe to use without protective clothing. If you have incredibly sensitive skin, maybe wear gloves, but none of these cleaners will do any harm. I'm allergic to just about everything and I don't have to wear any gloves when cleaning my brew gear. My wife even has me clean our kitchen appliances with my brew cleaners every now and then.

I've just picked up a box of Baking soda, going to test drive that this weekend. Thanks for the input everyone! Now I need to find a bottle brush to fit my drill

 

[madscientist451]

You don't need a bottle brush unless there is dried material inside that won't rinse out. If your wash out your bottles immediately after pouring, you really don't have to worry too much about anything being in there. On bottling day, each bottle is inspected by holding it up to a light and looking through the bottom. Sometimes a film on the bottom is present, I put those aside and move on, but later I fill the reject bottles with PBW solution and let them sit overnight. If the material doesn't come out after that, (usually does) I just give up and recycle that bottle. If you need a brush to clean the bottle, my feeling is there's a chance I'm not going to get it all, so why risk it. I have plenty of bottles and can toss the rejects without worry. If you are short of bottles, maybe brushing will work for you.
For label removal, I just use baking soda in water. If the label doesn't come off easily, its recycled. Some brands use a glue that's just not worth the trouble.
At bottling time all bottles are submerged in Star San for at least 2 minutes.
Take bottle out of Star San bucket, dump and immediately fill with beer and cap.
Don't forget to have the caps soaking in Star San as well.