Cleaning sediment and crud from the bottle

[knowitman]

My first bottling day is coming up in about a week and when taking inventory of the bottles I have and removing labels, I noticed that some bottles have a noticeable amount of crud built up on the bottom of them due to not being rinsed after their use. I was thinking about soaking these bottles in a bleach solution before hand. Will this be adequate for removing this crud from the bottles or is there anything else I will need to do?

As for bottle sanitation, I plan on putting my bottles in the dishwasher with some sanitizing solution and running a cycle with a heated dry. Should I also soak the bottles in a solution to help prevent contamination or should the dishwasher be adequate?

 

[Yooper]

My first bottling day is coming up in about a week and when taking inventory of the bottles I have and removing labels, I noticed that some bottles have a noticeable amount of crud built up on the bottom of them due to not being rinsed after their use. I was thinking about soaking these bottles in a bleach solution before hand. Will this be adequate for removing this crud from the bottles or is there anything else I will need to do?

As for bottle sanitation, I plan on putting my bottles in the dishwasher with some sanitizing solution and running a cycle with a heated dry. Should I also soak the bottles in a solution to help prevent contamination or should the dishwasher be adequate?

You definitely want to get ALL of the crud out before sanitizing. You may need a bleach/water soak and a bottle brush to get it super clean. Then, rinse like crazy until no scent of bleach remains.

I've never sanitized in the dishwasher, but you don't want to add sanitizer to the dishwasher. First, if it's a kind that foams, you'll have it all over your kitchen (do a search- I think it was Laurel who took pictures of her adventures with 1 tablespoon of star-san in the dishwasher....). Secondly, the sanitizer probably wouldn't go up into the bottles anyway. Sanitizing with a dishwasher works if you have a hot "sanitize" setting. To be honest, it's just easier to use a "vinator" and squirt two squirts of sanitizer up into the bottle and place it on the bottling tree (or in the rack of the dishwasher) so I've never tried to sanitize in the dishwasher. I'm sure it works fine for those who do it, though.

 

[humann_brewing]

fill bucket with a scoop of unscented regular oxy clean, fill with enough water to submerge bottles. Put bottles in and fill, leave for a little while, 10 minutes or so.

fill another bucket with an ounce of star san and repeat the water process sanitizes in minutes.

done!

 

[homebrewer_99]

In addition to the overnight soak in Oxi I cut the loop off of the bottle brush and insert it in my drill (like a bit) to scrub the insides of the bottle.

 

[demonrichie]

In addition to the overnight soak in Oxi I cut the loop off of the bottle brush and insert it in my drill (like a bit) to scrub the insides of the bottle.

that is awesome you should post pics in diy the auto bottle brush maybe buy a bunch of dollar store ones cut off loops and charge 10 bucks each :rockin: