Some people bake the bottles in the oven to sanitize them, whether due to lack of space for a bottling tree, paranoia about sanitization
, or just because they want to get the bottle sanitization out of the way before bottling day (you can do the baking a couple of days in advance). I've used this technique a couple of times with excellent results. The reason I used it is because I'm a noob and was a little intimidated by bottling for the first time and wanted to do as much as possible in advance. Here's how I did it:
* Wash, rinse and allow the bottle to dry overnight.
* Wrap 3 inch by 3 inch squares of aluminum foil tightly over the bottle mouths.
* Place bottles lying down in cold oven (I can do about 60 bottles at a time in my double oven, using the top or #1 rack position and the #3 position, but not the #4 position closest to the heating element).
* Bring the temperature up slowly to 350 degrees F - I was worried about direct radiant heat from a red-hot heating element cracking the bottles, so I actually sat in front of the ovens for 25 minutes, turning them on for 30 seconds, then off for 30 seconds - maybe overkill, but I did two batches of 60 bottles that way and had no cracked or broken bottles.
* Once the oven reaches 350 degrees, leave it for three hours
* Turn off the oven and allow the bottles to cool overnight
* Remove the bottles and put them in a box
* On bottling day, once you've got your bottling bucket filled and primed and bottling wand attached, just grab a bottle from the box, remove the foil, fill it and place a sanitized bottle cap loosely on it. When they are all filled, cap them tightly.