sanitizing in the dishwasher

[baystatebrew]

i've got a little one step left over that i don't really have any use for. i was thinking of throwing it in the dishwasher with my bottles to sanitize them. would this work do you think? not sure if this is a dumb question but i don't want to put anything in my dishwasher to mess it up. i wouldn't think this is a problem but just want to see what others have to say.

i realize one step and a home dishwasher aren't great sanitizers anyway. here's my proposed process for bottle sanitation:

1. soak all bottles in some onestep/water mixture for 24 hours (this also gets the labels and glue off)
2. throw bottles in dishwasher with some onestep in the soap compartment and run it for an hour at the hottest setting i can
3. let the bottles dry
4. soak bottles in some star san solution for a half hour
5. let dry
6. bottle up the brew

 

[pwndabear]

sounds like overkill to me unless your bottles are REALLY really dirty. But i dont see why that wouldnt work.

I use starsan and have never used onestep, but if onestep foams up, i wouldnt use it in the dishwasher. If you've ever used regular dishsoap in the dishwasher, it makes a huge soapy mess.

 

[baystatebrew]

yeah it probly is overkill. in my limited experience onestep doesn't really foam like star san. but i've never really vigorously mixed onestep and water, so i'm not sure if that foaming would happen in the dishwasher. just wondering. thanks for the helpful response.

 

[HomelessWook]

i have done nothing but run bottles through dishwasher twice without soap/sanitizer and steam dried them with no problems.

 

[pwndabear]

btw, i have run bottles through the dishwasher before when I was short on time. I made sure to run it once empty before using it on bottles, and then ran it with bottles ONLY. It worked perfectly for me.

If you have a new supply of jetdry or some kind of cleaning agent in there, i would forgo using the washer all together as jetdry tends to reduce head retention.

Make sure after using the dishwasher you inspect the bottles for any tiny specks of food or anything that the washer may have left behind. There is another thread going on about dishwasher usage somewhere that could provide some extra info, but ic ant seem to find it right now.

 

[DrinkNoH2O]

That's way overkill.

I soak the bottles in hot water/OxyClean Free for a few hours then rinse them off to remove labels/glue.

After that I run them in the dishwasher on the high heat setting with no soap or additives. That's it. Bottle away.

The temp is high enough to kill any microorganisms. No need to do anything more, you're wasting your time.

 

[drycreek]

That's way overkill.

I soak the bottles in hot water/OxyClean Free for a few hours then rinse them off to remove labels/glue.

After that I run them in the dishwasher on the high heat setting with no soap or additives. That's it. Bottle away.

This is what I do. If the bottles have already been used for homebrewing once, then I don't even soak them. I just put them in the dishwasher on high temp with no detergent or sanitizer, and after that they're ready. I haven't had a problem yet.

 

[baystatebrew]

right on. thanks everyone. maybe i'll just make my life easier and run em through the dishwasher with just water once or twice.

i've used oxyclean to get the bottle labels/glue off before too and it works awesome. i just don't have any left and read onestep does the same thing. since i've still got some old onestep i used that and it gets the labels/glue off just fine.

 

[DrinkNoH2O]

This is what I do. If the bottles have already been used for homebrewing once, then I don't even soak them. I just put them in the dishwasher on high temp with no detergent or sanitizer, and after that they're ready. I haven't had a problem yet.

Exactly, if there are no labels I skip the OxyClean soak. As I drink my homebrews I always rinse out the yeast from the bottle right after pouring so it doesn't harden inside.

Plus the dishwasher is super convenient at bottling time. I just set the bucket right above with the wand connected directly to the spigot, open the door, and go at it. Any little spills or drips are contained inside the dishwasher so no messes.

right on. thanks everyone. maybe i'll just make my life easier and run em through the dishwasher with just water once or twice.

i've used oxyclean to get the bottle labels/glue off before too and it works awesome. i just don't have any left and read onestep does the same thing. since i've still got some old onestep i used that and it gets the labels/glue off just fine.

Don't run it twice - waste of time. Once it hits the high temp once and holds for a couple minutes you've killed anything in there dead. No need to beat a dead horse (or bacterium).

 

[pwndabear]

One thing i personally do though is i DO sanitize right before bottling. as an extra measure. But i do it quick and in a conveyerbelt kinda way (maybe this will help someone who has been taking way too long with preparing bottles)

I have my bottling bucket on the shelf with some sanitizer in it, the clean empty bottles to my left on the ground, an empty case to my right on the ground, and then lil ol me on a chair in the middle in front of the bottling bucket.

I grab a bottle and put it directly on the spigot with my left hand and turn it on at a trickle. You may need to play around with the flow to get a speed thats right for you. I then switch to my right hand and grab another bottle with my left ready to go. Once i feel there is enough sanitizer in bottle 1 (not too much really), i quickly put bottle2 directly on the spigot and then with my right hand, cover the opening of the bottle 1 with my thumb, shake vigorously, pour the sanitizer back into the bucket, and then place in the empty case. Then i repeat all steps until im finished sanitizing every bottle. This takes me a total of maybe 5-10 minutes for 2 cases worth of bottles.

I once had a question very similar to yours about using the dishwasher and got a variety of responses just as this thread has. I basically just took the info i had and made up my own way to do it: for me, rinsing my bottles vigorously and IMMEDIATELY after use and storing away until its time to get the labels off with oxyclean, and then the sanitizing method i just described is good enough for me. If there are no labels and i've already done the oxyclean soak, i dont bother with it a second time.

to each his own.

 

[DrinkNoH2O]

But why not automate that process by letting the dishwasher do the work?

 

[pwndabear]

Sometimes dishwashers can leave little specks of food inside of your bottles, or may not get hot enough to sanitize, or may not be powerful enough to get the gunk out, or may have jetdry inside of them.

There are a number of factors in play here, but using the dishwasher isnt wrong. It's just not my preference. I prefer to be in control and not worry about all those dishwasher variables. Plus, my way is much faster (even though more labor intensive which really doesnt bother me at all)

... that and i have an old POS dishwasher.

 

[DrinkNoH2O]

Ah, ok - makes sense. I think I'm lucky in that the dishwasher at my place was replaced before we moved in.

 

[OzarkPA]

What I like, in my limited experience, is that you can set the bottles on the sanitize / high heat setting, run the load, and then as long as you don't open the door - they're sanitized until you need them. If you're like me, bottling after the kids are down / eating dinner / etc etc, you don't even get started till late, so it's easy to do way ahead of time and saves panicking at the last minute.