Reusing bottles - How many times?

[juslod]

I've recently discarded a few bottles because there was some strange discoloration below the 'beer level' in the necks of the emptys. When empty and thouroughly rinsed you can still see where there was beer in the bottle; below the beer line it looks lightly 'frosted' and above it looks clear. Water does not rinse this away so I just toss those bottles. I dont know why its happening. Anyone ever see something like this?

I have seen this too and wondered how it was forming. I also have been getting a ring at the neck where the beer level is, almost like a mini-krausen that is hard to remove. I have so many bottles coming in from friends that I just recycle bottles that an oxyclean soak doesn't clean

 

[remilard]

tell whoever told you that they are an idiot....

I would be very busy and unpopular if I took the opportunity to tell every homebrewer who said something wrong that they are an idiot.

 

[nutty_gnome]

They are brown. They were recycled from some random commercial brew. I still have some sitting around, I'll see about taking a picture.

 

[remilard]

I've recently discarded a few bottles because there was some strange discoloration below the 'beer level' in the necks of the emptys. When empty and thouroughly rinsed you can still see where there was beer in the bottle; below the beer line it looks lightly 'frosted' and above it looks clear. Water does not rinse this away so I just toss those bottles. I dont know why its happening. Anyone ever see something like this?

Beer stone. Try some CLR or star-san mixed 2-3 times as strong as the instructions indicate.

 

[nutty_gnome]

Why does it happen on only a small fraction of bottles?

 

[nebben]

One million times. Or, whenever the bottle cracks or breaks, throw it away. Whichever comes first!

 

[remilard]

Why does it happen on only a small fraction of bottles?

Hard to say but the fact that water doesn't rinse it away and it doesn't happen in every bottle makes me doubt that it is organic. If it is inorganic Occam's Razor suggests beer stone and acid is the correct protocol anyway.

In any case either acid or caustic will clean it. I would try the acid first as it is easier to get and handle an acid (CLR) that will remove beerstone with a reasonable contact time than it is to work with caustic.

 

[Malintent]

I run thin wine glasses through the dishwasher on the dry cycle all the time, much thinner glass than beer bottles. No weakening of glass. If this was true I wouldn't be able to pick up my wine glasses, they are 10 years old!

Dishwasher heat will not damage glass. If it did it wouldn't be on a "dish"washer.

I do not use standard dish detergent on bottles though, usually just water and heat. I have used b-brite or 1 step if they where really cruddy. I do a final vintinator squirt with starsan just before bottling.

You may be quite surprised to know that the THINNER the glass the STRONGER it is, with respect to heat resilience.

put an empty beer bottle and a wine glass in your freezer for an hour. Then take them both out and immediately drop them into a pot of boiling water. Your wine glass will (probably) survive. your beer bottle will explode.

Also, note that I never said you couldn't put them in the dishwasher.. I said to just not use the sanitize or heated dry cycles, which, if you check your dishwasher's manual, are cycles not recommended for most items.

 

[Beer604]

I've recently discarded a few bottles because there was some strange discoloration below the 'beer level' in the necks of the emptys. When empty and thouroughly rinsed you can still see where there was beer in the bottle; below the beer line it looks lightly 'frosted' and above it looks clear. Water does not rinse this away so I just toss those bottles. I dont know why its happening. Anyone ever see something like this?

It happened to me on my first batch. I used some
white bottles, (corona I believe) and they got skunked.
It tasted like crap and had the yellowish discoloration in the bottle.
Now I'm paranoid about light hitting my brew, and throw out the
white bottles.

 

[nutty_gnome]

This place is great. My bottles look just like the ones in this thread.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottle-frost-what-156490/

Apparently I am not the first to see this.

 

[MarzBock]

That "frost" is probably due to some hard-water stains of some kind. It's INorganic, salts and what-not. Like lime-stains in the bathtub, they are hard to get rid of.

Try a strong acid or base bath. that should do it. Sodium Hydroxide is sold as "drain opener". we clean glassware in the lab with Potassium Hydroxide/isopropanol (rubbing alchohol). If THAT doesn't get it clean, it AIN'T coming clean... well, maybe chromate cleaner would be stronger, but you probably can't get your hands on that (VERY toxic stuff).

Oh, yeah, and that CLR cleaner is probably geared toward this kind of stain as well..

 

[MarzBock]

You may be quite surprised to know that the THINNER the glass the STRONGER it is, with respect to heat resilience.

put an empty beer bottle and a wine glass in your freezer for an hour. Then take them both out and immediately drop them into a pot of boiling water. Your wine glass will (probably) survive. your beer bottle will explode.

Also, note that I never said you couldn't put them in the dishwasher.. I said to just not use the sanitize or heated dry cycles, which, if you check your dishwasher's manual, are cycles not recommended for most items.

This is only true for heat-shock/ thermal change effects. Thicker glass will expand at different rates on the exposed side, thus breakage. Any glass will perform the same if it is allowed to heat/cool at a slower rate, not shocked like you describe.

Pyrex can handle this kind of change, that's why it is used in lab-glass (boro-silicate). Soda-lime glass can't deal with it (beer bottles).

 

[dvdanny]

You may be quite surprised to know that the THINNER the glass the STRONGER it is, with respect to heat resilience.

put an empty beer bottle and a wine glass in your freezer for an hour. Then take them both out and immediately drop them into a pot of boiling water. Your wine glass will (probably) survive. your beer bottle will explode.

Also, note that I never said you couldn't put them in the dishwasher.. I said to just not use the sanitize or heated dry cycles, which, if you check your dishwasher's manual, are cycles not recommended for most items.

Again, as long as you are not filling up burning hot bottles or cooling them by dipping them in cold sanitizer, i don't see how they can be fatigued by the heat process, glass isn't like metal, the main reason it is 100% recyclable is because this property. You can introduce or strip minerals from glass by heating it BUT it'd have to be at or near molten levels, something your dishwasher or oven cannot do (unless of course you have a kiln).

Glass is only weakened when it is heated then quickly cooled (causes micro cracks within the structure) or vice versa. If you are letting the bottles cool slowly (like you should) you can use and sanitize (oven or dishwasher sanitize cycle) your bottles 100 times would still have 100% confidence that they can do another 100 batches.

When I used the oven, i'd let the bottles cool over the period of an hour or more inside the oven itself. This is at 350 degrees and not a single break to date from bottles that had already been used about 50 times before I got them.

 

[Hockeyhunter99]

anyone have problems with certain brands?

i personally like the guiness (both draught and ES) and Sam Adams bottles. but are there any brown pry-tops that should be avoided?

 

[logan3825]

I run thin wine glasses through the dishwasher on the dry cycle all the time, much thinner glass than beer bottles. No weakening of glass. If this was true I wouldn't be able to pick up my wine glasses, they are 10 years old!

Maybe it weakened maybe it didn't. You are not putting wine glasses under pressure like you do beer bottles.

 

[damnyankee]

This is only true for heat-shock/ thermal change effects. Thicker glass will expand at different rates on the exposed side, thus breakage. Any glass will perform the same if it is allowed to heat/cool at a slower rate, not shocked like you describe.

Pyrex can handle this kind of change, that's why it is used in lab-glass (boro-silicate). Soda-lime glass can't deal with it (beer bottles).

You're partially correct.

Let's remember we're talking about ovens temps here (only up to 500 degF)...not bunsen burners and kilns. I've spent years in a chemistry lab - you don't have to worry about thermal issues with beer bottles at 250 or 300 deg F from an oven unless your taking a 300 deg bottle and immediately pouring ice water in to it. And I don't know ANYONE who does that.

 

[dvdanny]

anyone have problems with certain brands?

i personally like the guiness (both draught and ES) and Sam Adams bottles. but are there any brown pry-tops that should be avoided?

I used a whole mix of bottles (macro, micro and european, even coca cola bottles), although some of the macro bottles seem thinner (Michelob comes to mind), i never had a crack or break using either wing or bench cappers. Now I'm switching over to all sierra nevada bottles because I like their beer and the bottles look sweet with the labels I print out for them. Only ones I stayed away from were the ones that my wing capper couldn't cap (I don't like using my bench capper)