Most Efficient/Sanitary Bottling Procedure

[butterblum]

Hey guys,
I am a new home brewer, and am on my third batch of extract brew (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale Clone). Both of my first batches have had some good beers, but I believe that the majority of bottles have some sort of infection (or possibly just too much priming sugar in solution). My Pale Ale is sitting in the secondary right now, and there are no visible signs of infection, so I would think that my past problems have been occurring during the bottling stage.
Questions:
How do people sufficiently sanitize their racking cane/plastic tubing/bottling wand? I just run sanitizer through it multiple times.
How do people sanitize their bottles? I have been using this device (http://www.midwestsupplies.com/bottl...-sulfiter.html) with both new and old bottles, and have been hanging them on a bottle tree to dry.
Is it advised to keep lids on everything as much as you can (bottling bucket, bottles, etc.)? I have not been doing this during bottling, and I have been bottling twelve bottles at a time (without placing caps on them) and then capping those twelve all at once.
Also, what is the proper conditioning procedure? Do you wait until carbonation is perfect and then immediately move the bottles to cool temperatures? Or does temperature not matter if there is a correct amount of priming sugar added during bottling?
Thanks

 

[BowAholic]

starsan is a good way to sanitize, and then put them on your bottling tree until you are ready to add beer...don't wait for them to dry, as the wet starsan is what sanitizes the bottle. Put the caps in a cup of starsan/water as well, and just pull them out of the solution as you need them. I also always give everything in the bottling bucket a few good stirs with a sanitized stir spoon...keep some starsan/water in a spray bottle for lots of quick jobs.

 

[Saboral]

I sink all my bottles in a bucket of StarSan and then place them in a fastrack to drip dry. I put the caps in a Starsan dip then proceed with bottling. I would like to build a StarSan rinser that uses a bottle washer above a reservoir with a pump. The StarSan would just cycle from the reservoir through the sprayer.

 

[jshathaway]

I started washing each bottle after pouring, letting it drip dry in the dishwasher, putting a piece of foil over the top and baking them in the oven @ 340 for 60 minutes. This effectively sterilizes the bottles and so long as the foil stays on, they should be good to go. I've only done this with 1 batch so far, but no problems. plan on doing it with the next 2 batches within the next week.
Palmer even gives time to this method in How To Brew.

 

[Oginme]

First, everything must be cleaned before any type of sanitization is possible.

I keep a five gallon pail with about 3 gallons of sanitzer in it near my cleaning area. Before bottling, the bottling wand and siphon get put into the bucket and I fill the lines to make sure all surfaces are wetted. I also use a sulfiter with starsan to sanitize my clean bottles and hang them in a fastrack to drip excess sanitizer out. Once I have finished the with the bottles, I add the caps to the reservoir of the sulfiter. I keep a couple of cafeteria trays clean and sanitized for bottling. Everything goes onto the trays: bottles, caps, hydrometer and graduated cylinder, etc. If something hits the table -- back into the sanitizer it goes.

When bottling, I have the bottle in one hand filling and a cap in the other. Once the bottle is filled, it is covered with a cap and placed on one of the trays.

Something else to check is to make absolutely sure that you have reached final gravity before bottling and that your priming sugar is well mixed before adding to your bottling bucket. I like to pre-dissolve the sugar in water and boil for 5 to 10 minutes before adding it to the bottling bucket.

 

[Sailingeric]

My process... I will fill the sink with hot water and starsans. I will put my racking cane and bottling wand in it and pump some through and let it sit along with 5 or 6 bottles. Once I am ready to start bottling I will pour out the water from the bottles, fill 4 or 5, cap them, will I am capping I will add more bottles to the sink and keep the processing going, this way the bottles are always wet with starsans or beer.

As for condition, I was putting my bottles in a rubber maid tote in the spare bedroom to carb up and then to the garage. Now that is getting warmer, I have been putting the beer in the garage to condition and storing.

 

[m00ps]

yeah I've found its much, much faster to lay a sanitized cap over each bottle and set it aside for capping later than capping each bottle as you fill it. I timed it last time and it took me 93 seconds to cap ~50 bottles. I use empty 6 pack cartons to hold them upright so they dont fall over