bottle sanitization question

[beerbelay]

Before bottling I have been filling my bucket with star san and rinsing my bottles (inside and out) with the solution. Is this step needed or is rinsing with water sufficient?

 

[llazy_llama]

Rinsing with water is not sufficient for sanitation. What you're doing will work, but I can suggest a few tips to help steamline that, and reduce your Star San use.

1) Get a spray bottle and some distilled water. Using distilled water with Star San will make your solution stay useable for weeks or even months. I use my spray bottle to spray out my bottling bucket, then flip it upside down over some paper towels to let it dry out. Compared to filling the bucket with water and sanitizer, this is a huge money saver.

2) Drop the 10-15 bucks on a vinator. It'll let you spray sanitizer inside your bottles, coating the inside. Again, this is much more efficient than filling a bucket with water and sanitizer and dunking the bottles.

Hope that helped.

 

[Tonedef131]

What you are doing is perfect, I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[Pappers_]

Rinsing with water is not sufficient for sanitation. What you're doing will work, but I can suggest a few tips to help steamline that, and reduce your Star San use.

1) Get a spray bottle and some distilled water. Using distilled water with Star San will make your solution stay useable for weeks or even months. I use my spray bottle to spray out my bottling bucket, then flip it upside down over some paper towels to let it dry out. Compared to filling the bucket with water and sanitizer, this is a huge money saver.

2) Drop the 10-15 bucks on a vinator. It'll let you spray sanitizer inside your bottles, coating the inside. Again, this is much more efficient than filling a bucket with water and sanitizer and dunking the bottles.

Hope that helped.

Sharing the vinator luv! Best invention ever!

Jim

 

[SumnerH]

First I heat up the priming sugar + water and let it start cooling.

Then I just pour some of my star-san (mixed) into the bottling bucket, then using the bottling wand SWMBO puts a little in each bottle and I shake 'em up and dump them back in the bucket (dipping the neck of the bottle in the process). Takes < 5 minutes to do 50 bottles, and the bottling bucket, spigot, and wand get sanitized in the process. Then siphon the star-san back into the storage bucket (to sanitize the autosiphon and tube), pouring a little to make sure the entire bottling bucket is sanitized.

Then pour the sugar in the bottling bucket, rack the beer in on top (use the hose to whirlpool it a little to mix it up well), and bottle away.

I bottle with a partner, so a vinator doesn't seem like it'd help speed things up much at all. If I bottled alone, the vinator would probably be worth it. A bottle tree just seems like clutter to me, but a lot of people disagree.

 

[Revvy]

You may find some good tips in here...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/revvys-tips-bottler-first-time-otherwise-94812/

 

[beerbelay]

exactly what I needed. Thanks

 

[staffVAJoe]

I second the vinator,

 

[StoutFan]

I'm a dunk and drain guy myself. Fill the bucket, drain enough to get the hose and bottle filler and all siphon equipment, the dunk and drain all the bottles. Takes a little time, but I love bottling day, one day closer to drinking day!

 

[pericles]

Usually I sterilize my sink as best I can, and then fill it with a water-starsan solution. Each bottle gets dunked and drained, and then placed in the dish-washer. I run the dishwasher, which takes the bottles up to a pretty high heat, and then back down. I know it's probably not health-code, but I've never had an infection (knock on wood.)

 

[llazy_llama]

Oh, you poor dunkers are wasting so much money to sanitize your bottles.

pericles: If you're going to run bottles through the dishwasher (which I would strongly discourage for several reasons) I would at least recommend you do that before the Star San dunk. Odds are that the way you're doing it, the bottles are coming out of the dishwasher with more bacteria than when they went in. Star San is a no-rinse sanitizer (and yes, they do mean NO rinse) and you're doing your bottles a disservice by rinsing them after sanitizing.

 

[pericles]

llazy llama is obviously right. I feel sheepish. (ok, llama-ish).

 

[StoutFan]

I like my way, makes me feel safe and fuzzy inside. Plus, I get the Star San in bulk at about cost, so the cost of "wasting" a gallon or two outweighs the cost of a 5 gallon batch.