Bottles In Oven(Sanitizing)

[hoppybrewster]

Has anyone ever sanitized bottles in an oven? There was a YouTube vid on doing this, can't seem to find it now. He brought the temp up slow and then down slow, no chemicals. What say you?

 

[Stauffbier]

I know a brewer that does this. He puts foil on top of each bottle. He raises the temp slowly, and when he's done he leaves the bottles in the oven to cool overnight. I don't know what temp he goes up to, though.

 

[hoppybrewster]

Foil? Does he lay them down or stand them up?

 

[Stauffbier]

Foil? Does he lay them down or stand them up?

I'm not sure. He just briefly explained it to me. He said he puts a small piece of foil over each opening to keep them sanitized after cooling. I'm guessing he stands them up, but not sure..

 

[boydster]

Palmer talks about it in How to Brew, also.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter2-2-3.html

Oven
Dry heat is less effective than steam for sanitizing and sterilizing, but many brewers use it. The best place to do dry heat sterilization is in your oven. To sterilize an item, refer to the following table for temperatures and times required.

Table 3 - Dry Heat Sterilization
Temperature - Duration

338°F (170°C) - 60 minutes
320°F (160°C) - 120 minutes
302°F (150°C) - 150 minutes
284°F (140°C) - 180 minutes
250°F (121°C) - 12 hours (Overnight)

The times indicated begin when the item has reached the indicated temperature. Although the durations seem long, remember this process kills all microorganisms, not just most as in sanitizing. To be sterilized, items need to be heat-proof at the given temperatures. Glass and metal items are prime candidates for heat sterilization.

Some homebrewers bake their bottles using this method and thus always have a supply of clean sterile bottles. The opening of the bottle can be covered with a piece of aluminum foil prior to heating to prevent contamination after cooling and during storage. They will remain sterile indefinitely if kept wrapped.

One note of caution: bottles made of soda lime glass are much more susceptible to thermal shock and breakage than those made of borosilicate glass and should be heated and cooled slowly (e.g. 5 °F per minute). You can assume all beer bottles are made of soda lime glass and that any glassware that says Pyrex or Kimax is made of borosilicate.

 

[Foosier]

I've done this before. I laid them down as they don't stand on the racks well. I put the bottles in, turned the oven on to 400 degrees. Let it hit temp and then turned it off and let it cool overnight. Seemed to work. Downside is it takes up your oven for quite a while. Creates a lot of heat and is not really any less work than washing and wet sanitizing. I went back to starsan as that was easier. I'm not a big bottler though.

 

[HornetSparky]

I oven sanitize every time. What I like about it is that the sanitized (technically sterilized; even better) bottles can be stored indefinitely as long as the foil isn't disturbed. So it decouples the bottle cleaning from the bottling. I can sterilize the bottles and have them ready to bottle next week.

I have always raised the oven temp slowly in an effort to avoid stressing the soda glass, but given what I have seen with beer bottles in campfires, I am going to start just setting it at 350, leaving them there for an hour and then letting them cool overnight. If I break any I will reply to announce that my analysis was flawed.

 

[Jim_Holmes]

palmer describes this in his book but says you have to be carefull as it is easy to break the bottles with too fast of a heat adjustment

 

[HornetSparky]

I read Palmer's warning as well and I've always raised the temp on the oven slowly. Still, like many on this forum, I bet, I've put more than a few beer bottles in campfires hoping to for a puddle of glass, or at least deformation of the bottle. Sadly, I've never seen anything other than discoloration occur. Since the center of a sizable camp fire must be well over 450 deg F and sudden exposure to that temp has yielded no noticeable bottle damage, I wonder if heating the bottles in the oven straight to 350 might be tolerable.

My fear is that the bottles will be weakened and I will only find that out when I pasteurize cider in them and it sounds like an artillery fire mission. Any thoughts?

 

[fearwig]

I did maybe six batches this way when I didn't have a dishwasher and it was a breeze. Load it cold, vertical or horizontal, whichever is more stable/holds more bottles. Turn it to 200-250. Come back in two hours, turn it off, let it cool for an hour with the door shut. Bottle when they're cool enough to handle--there isn't enough mass in a warm bottle to overheat your beer as long as it isn't scorching.

The foil isn't necessary if you're going to use them right out of the oven--a cooling oven is plenty sanitary. I stopped using foil after the first run and it cut my labor in half or better.

You really don't have to worry about temperature shock with this unless you do something nuts like pull them out with tongs and drop them in ice water.

Anything over 250 is overkill. It might not hurt anything, but you're waiting for the actual glass of the bottles to get at least near 200--that's it. It doesn't even have to stay there any longer than it takes to cool naturally, at 200 everything you could worry about is long dead and gone. At these temps and duration I don't see how your glass can suffer, it's made for this.


You can ignore Palmer's numbers, I don't know why he supplies figures for sterilization when you are only trying to sanitize, it's misleading as hell. Look at a pasteurization chart for a better idea of what you want and you will see how little heat and time you need.

 

[bmahler]

I did this for YEARS. Put the bottles in the oven on their side, turn the oven on to it's lowest setting (old ovens, probably around 225), and when it reaches temp, shut it off. As soon as they were cool to the touch, fill them with beer!

 

[ScottG58]

I tried for awhile. I thought I broke more bottles while capping. Even broke some taking the cap off.

I used instructions from Palmer.

 

[fearwig]

I tried for awhile. I thought I broke more bottles while capping. Even broke some taking the cap off.

I used instructions from Palmer.

Crazy, I've never heard of a bottle breaking during capping. You went up to like 400f then, I take it?

 

[C-Rider]

So much easier to soak in Star San for a few minutes. Gotta be cheaper too.

 

[Hobanon]

So much easier to soak in Star San for a few minutes. Gotta be cheaper too.

I disagree, though it is easier to sanitize MORE bottles via star san in one go. I bottle multiple batches at a time and even with two ovens, I wouldn't be able to do them all without multiple "shifts" at the oven. Also, heat sanitizing tends to screw up certain types of labels (I'm generally too lazy to remove them anymore), especially Southern Tier labels.

 

[C-Rider]

I disagree, though it is easier to sanitize MORE bottles via star san in one go. I bottle multiple batches at a time and even with two ovens, I wouldn't be able to do them all without multiple "shifts" at the oven. Also, heat sanitizing tends to screw up certain types of labels (I'm generally too lazy to remove them anymore), especially Southern Tier labels.

Did you mean you agree w/me? Using all that electricity for hours and hours has to cost more than StarSan.

 

[mdzitter]

I use Palmers instructions every time and have never had a breakage. That said you can use lower temps and just sanitize, as others have said.