Moldy Bottle Solutions?

[Trokair]

So I find that when my friends give their empty bottles to me they tend to have moldy beer left in the bottom or just mold kind of slimed from the sides. Recently I had to dip into this stash of moldy bottles to try and bottle a beer and I think I have a few not-so-good ones in there. So I'm looking for a sure fire way to clean these bottles out.

Basically what I did was take the offenders and soak them in Oxyclean for about an hour then scrub them out with a bottle brush. Next soaked in Star San for 30 minutes then hung on a bottling tree. After drying they were packed into their cardboard boxes and stashed in my fully finished basement for a few weeks.

Even after all of that there is still some attached film in the bottoms of some of these but I really just underestimated how many bottles I needed and used some of these anyway (after sanitation of course).

My question is if there is a sure way to clean these out for good. Should I soak them in bleach for a week? Run them through my dishwasher twice? There has got to be some way to guarentee the cleanliness of these bottles once again. Any help is appreciated.

 

[unionrdr]

I first clean them out as well as I can,then boil up some water. Stand them on a cutting board next to the sink,& use a funnel to fill them to the shoulder with the hot,steamy water. Let'em sit for 30 minutes to cook the lil buggers but good. Then brush'em out well,visually inspecting them for lil spots of crud I might've missed. Sometimes I'll even fill them to the shoulder with PBW & sit for another half hour to an hour. Scrub,drain,rinse again. And don't forget to scrub the lips of the bottles with PBW & a dobie to get that area clean for better sealing caps. Another minor problem solved there. Place on bottle tree to dry then store in there covered 12 pack craft boxes. I like Leinenkugel's,as they have sperators in them,& tabbed top flaps with two layered flaps under that. This has worked well for me so far.

 

[acidrain]

I took a bottle brush and cut off the loop-end. Chucked the bottle brush in my cordless drill and used that along with some REALLY hot oxyclean solution. Comes out squeaky clean.
Look for a stiff bottle brush to make into a really aggressive powered bottle brush.

 

[RM-MN]

So I find that when my friends give their empty bottles to me they tend to have moldy beer left in the bottom or just mold kind of slimed from the sides. Recently I had to dip into this stash of moldy bottles to try and bottle a beer and I think I have a few not-so-good ones in there. So I'm looking for a sure fire way to clean these bottles out.

Basically what I did was take the offenders and soak them in Oxyclean for about an hour then scrub them out with a bottle brush. Next soaked in Star San for 30 minutes then hung on a bottling tree. After drying they were packed into their cardboard boxes and stashed in my fully finished basement for a few weeks.

Even after all of that there is still some attached film in the bottoms of some of these but I really just underestimated how many bottles I needed and used some of these anyway (after sanitation of course).

My question is if there is a sure way to clean these out for good. Should I soak them in bleach for a week? Run them through my dishwasher twice? There has got to be some way to guarentee the cleanliness of these bottles once again. Any help is appreciated.

If there was anything in the bottom of the bottle when you filled it, put those bottles in a plastic tub with a good lid on it. You are likely to have bottle bombs from these even though they were sanitized. Ask how I know this.

 

[Revvy]

A soak in oxyclean and hot water, usually over night, will both remove labels and bring up most of the crud at the bottom of the bottles.

 

[Trokair]

If there was anything in the bottom of the bottle when you filled it, put those bottles in a plastic tub with a good lid on it. You are likely to have bottle bombs from these even though they were sanitized. Ask how I know this.

Well they can't be too badly infected. I only had one bottle who's cap is bowed out and it hasn't blown. This is 3 weeks later so I'm fairly sure that the mass of carbonation is done on a 5% holiday brown ale. Been sitting between 67F and 70F that entire time.

I haven't opened the bowed one yet because I wanted to throw it in the fridge for a few days so it doesn't blow up in my hand or something when I try to open it. I originally thought it as a bad carbination but I boiled my priming sugar in water and added it to the bottling bucket and stirred so I don't see how one beer out of 60 would be so badly over carbed.

I didn't consider filling the bottles with boiling water. Or better yet, filling one of my bit pots up and boiling the bottles themselves. I'll have to try that next time.

So it looks like I was pretty much on point for what I had to do. Just do it better. Thanks for the posts.

 

[RM-MN]

Well they can't be too badly infected. I only had one bottle who's cap is bowed out and it hasn't blown. This is 3 weeks later so I'm fairly sure that the mass of carbonation is done on a 5% holiday brown ale. Been sitting between 67F and 70F that entire time.

I haven't opened the bowed one yet because I wanted to throw it in the fridge for a few days so it doesn't blow up in my hand or something when I try to open it. I originally thought it as a bad carbination but I boiled my priming sugar in water and added it to the bottling bucket and stirred so I don't see how one beer out of 60 would be so badly over carbed.

I didn't consider filling the bottles with boiling water. Or better yet, filling one of my bit pots up and boiling the bottles themselves. I'll have to try that next time.

So it looks like I was pretty much on point for what I had to do. Just do it better. Thanks for the posts.

Don't count your hatches before there chickened or something like that. Mine took months to blow. I'm not even sure when it happened because I had them well controlled but when I went to take a bottle out of the box I got an empty bottle less the bottom that stayed in the box. Infections can take quite a while to blow the bottles from what I've been told.

 

[Cyclman]

Steam cleaner works.