Sterilizing Bottles

[andrew_p]

Hi All,

I'm a brand new brewer and am planning to start brewing my first batch this weekend. I'll be brewing 5 gallons from an extract kit.

I've been reading everything I can find on the subject, and am going into the hobby with my eyes wide open.

One question I have is around sterilizing bottles. In How to Brew by John Palmer, he mentions that some brewers sterilize their bottles using dry heat in an oven. The brewer would seal the end of the bottle with aluminum foil, prior to baking. As long as the seal remains in place, the inside of the bottle remains sterile. This strikes me as a good way to have a supply of sterilized bottles on hand without having to do everything on bottling day.

My concern is the risk of the bottles cracking when heated. If the bottle is sealed, won't the air inside expand causing the glass to crack or break? Does anyone use this method? Would you recommend it?

Thanks for any help or advice.

 

[Trox]

Don't put the foil over tight when you place it on but then as you take them out just give them a little squeeze to completely set them.

Edit: Even if you put the foil on as tight as possible it would still blow off before the bottle would crack/burst from the pressure; unless the bottle was ready to burst anyways in which case it wouldn't be able to handle the pressure of bottle carbing so saved yourself a future mess.

 

[Pappers_]

Hi and welcome. Have not used an oven to sanitize bottles so can't directly answer your question. Homebrewers tend to talk about sanitizing, not sterilizing. For good sanitation, many of us think of a two step process: clean immediately after use and sanitize immediately before use. FWIW, I use two commercial sanitizers, StarSan and Iodophor, on all my brewing equipment and bottles.

Good luck with your first batch.

 

[thegreatmaibockaddict]

I have been bottling for 20 years. We use a chlorine water soak, and hot water rinse with a bottle washer. Never have had a problem.

Your oven method is fine, but the day will come when you realize that you would rather use swing top bottles and eliminate caps, in which case you would need the chlorine soak (I have to former plastic bottling buckets that became infected that I use to hold chlorinated water with the bottles).

 

[dstranger99]

I wouldn't bother with all that, just get some PBW, OneStep, etc. Put your bottles in the sink, add 2 teaspoons, fill with water, and let them soak in there for awhile.

 

[tootal]

Star-san is an excellent, no rinse sanitizer. Dunk em for 2 minutes and hang them on the bottle tree. Don't fear the Foam!! It will have no affect on your beer.
If you rinse your bottles out and then put some foil over the opening and lay them in the oven you might hear a few pops as the water goes to vapor but that's ok, you just steam cleaned the bottle!

Others have used the drying cycle in the dishwasher which works well also.

 

[freisste]

As others have said, it is not a worry. Even if you could get an actual seal on the foil (which I doubt), the burst strength of the glass is far higher than the burst strength of the foil.

The biggest concern would be a defect within the glass which would become a stress riser when heated. This could cause failure. However, I would much rather have an empty bottle break in the oven than have a full bottle break in my closet .

 

[flars]

I would not recommend heating the bottles in the oven. This may cause stress problems with the glass.
Manufacturing oils from new bottles will still remain. The oils will just be a very dry, stinking coating inside the bottle. Left over trub gunk will just become dried trub gunk which can still contain bacteria unless oven temperature is super high. Then the higher temperatures can cause more stresses to the glass.
We do not need to sterilize bottles. Sanitizing is sufficient for brewing purposes.
Some simple procedures are to clean manufacturing oils from new bottles with PBW. Rinse well and store upside down to dry.
Freshly poured bottles triple rinse and store upside down to dry.
On brew day sanitize with Starsan solution. Place upside down to drain and fill when still wet.
Starsan is a wet sanitizer. Once the sanitized surface dries, the surface can become reinfected. The Starsan foam which remains in the bottle before filling will be pushed out as the wand fills the bottle. Starsan foam which remains in the bottle, or fermentation carboys and buckets, will have no effect on the beer.

 

[gregfreemyer]

First remember you have to clean each bottle before you sanitize it. I've never used the oven but here is what I do:

I just use hot faucet water to clean the inside of the bottle as best I can immediately after use. Then a day or two before bottling I do that again and run them through my dishwasher. My dishwasher can hold 10 six-packs of bottles if there is nothing else in there.

Most dishwashers have a sanitizing heat cycle as the last step. Just be sure you don't run the dishwasher in econ mode because at least on mine that skips the sanitizing heat cycle.

That gets everything nice and clean, but I don't actually depend on it being sanitized.

Then on bottling day I have a vininator and a bottling tree. (About $50 combined from my LHBS). The vininator squirts sanitizer into the bottle and gets it all wet. Then I put the bottle on the bottle tree for a few minutes to drip dry. The bottle tree holds the bottle with the mouth down.

I've always bottled with a friend, so one of us is prepping bottles while the other is filling them. I try not to get too many minutes ahead with the sanitized bottles. If working by myself, I would probably sanitize 10 or 15, then fill them. Repeat until done.

If you bottle near your dishwasher, you could use the upper rack as the bottle tree. Just spray it down with sanitizer before you start bottling.

 

[Trox]

I personally just use StarSan to sanitize my bottles since you won't even need to rinse and if you get one of vinator/sulfiter and a bottling tree then it only takes a couple of minutes to sanitize your bottles. I can do the sanitation while waiting for my beer to rack to the bottling bucket.

 

[Foosier]

I have oven sanitized before. It seems like the fastest, easiest method but in reality it is not really that much better than using a no-rinse sanitizer. You still need to wash the gunk out of the bottles before you bake them. Once you do that you cover the top with tin foil and place in the oven. From what I have read it is best that they are a bit moist inside since wet heat is more effective than dry heat. Then once all the bottles are in the oven turn it on to 400 or whatever temp you want to use. Let it sit at temp for 30 min and then turn the oven off and let the bottles cool in the oven with the door shut. This will take a few hours and is best to do overnight.

So it seems easy, but note the time you are baking into the process and the pre-planning it requires. If your bottles are clean from gunk the alternative is spending 30 min or so dipping the bottles in sanitizer and then setting them up for bottling. This for me was the key. I don't tend to want to ready my bottles way in advance of bottling. I also like the security that sanitizing and immediately filling provides. I know if the foil was in place it "should" be ok, but you never know and I would feel the need to use some sanitizer anyway. This would defeat the purpose.

One note: If you do decide to oven sanitze, be sure all labels are removed. Don't ask how I know...

 

[Trox]

I wouldn't bother with all that, just get some PBW, OneStep, etc. Put your bottles in the sink, add 2 teaspoons, fill with water, and let them soak in there for awhile.

That's a great way to clean your bottles, but won't sanitize them.

 

[thegreatmaibockaddict]

That's a great way to clean your bottles, but won't sanitize them.

I should elaborate on the chlorine method and bottle washer. The chlorine will CLEAN residue out of bottles as well as sanitize, and the bottle washer with hot water will help power out some gunk if you have a bottle that you want to re-use that someone forgot to rinse out!

I also use chlorine in my fermentors (glass) after beer has been transferred to secondary. The yeast gunk usually dissolves overnite, or after a couple days...then rinse with the bottle washer.

 

[Haxmax]

I wash out my bottles really well after emptying them. Then the night before I'm going to bottle, I use a bottle brush and little Oxiclean to scrub them good. They then go in the dishwasher for a full cycle. Then in the morning I drop them in a bottling bucket with Star San and let them soak for a few minutes. Then into the drying rack and ready for bottling.

Never used the oven. I'd be afraid it would, over time, weaken the glass

 

[dstranger99]

I personally just use StarSan to sanitize my bottles since you won't even need to rinse and if you get one of vinator/sulfiter and a bottling tree then it only takes a couple of minutes to sanitize your bottles. I can do the sanitation while waiting for my beer to rack to the bottling bucket.

Exactly ! It's what I've been doing for 2 years now, but since he's a noob I gave him the old kitchen sink method.......:fro:

 

[Trox]

I should elaborate on the chlorine method and bottle washer. The chlorine will CLEAN residue out of bottles as well as sanitize, and the bottle washer with hot water will help power out some gunk if you have a bottle that you want to re-use that someone forgot to rinse out!

I also use chlorine in my fermentors (glass) after beer has been transferred to secondary. The yeast gunk usually dissolves overnite, or after a couple days...then rinse with the bottle washer.

Yeah I agree your method would clean and sanitize them; I was talking about dsstranger99 in my quote who had mentioned using PBW in the sink.

 

[andrew_p]

Thank you for the detailed replies,

I think for my first few batches I'll go with sanitizing in StarSan, and only worry about sterilizing if I end up with any funky beer in bottles that have been unopened for a long time. In all honesty, it's unlikely any of my beer will remain un-drunk long enough for it to become a problem

 

[aubiecat]

1. Rinse bottle very well after pouring one out.
2. Let dry on a bottle tree.
3. Bottling day, fill dishwasher with needed amount of bottles. Run sanitizing and heated dry cycles.
4. Fill bottles with beer.

 

[unionrdr]

I rinse the bottles out after drinking. Then fill with water & scrub a little with my bottle brush. Then rinse again & onto the bottle tree to dry. This goes a long way to eliminating little stubborn spots of trub that you'd get otherwise. Or could get...why chance it?
Then on bottling day, I fill the vinator on top of my bottle tree half full of Starsan & give each bottle three pumps. Then onto the tree till it's full
& bottle away.

 

[hannibalmdq]

I've been sterilizing the oven since early this year and I really like it. I had one bottle bomb, but I highly suspect it was just a bad bottle from a cheap set I acquired. It does happen.

Since they are soda lime glass, don't just put them in the oven and set them for your final temp and let them ride for an hour. It's not really the high heat that weaken the soda lime glass. It's the rapid change in temperature. If your curious, here's my process.

1) Drink beer. Rinse out the bottles and start to collect them as your go.
3) Once enough empties are ready to fill the oven make an oxiclean bath, soak them a bit, rinse and set to dry overnight.
4) In the morning, wrap foil around the top of each bottle and stuff in the oven. I use the following steps.

1. Preheat to lowest setting, 190 my case. Wait 10 minutes after reaching temperature.
2. Bump to 230. Waiting 10 minutes after reaching temperature.
3. Bump to 280. Wait 10 minutes.
4. Bump to 320. Wait 10 minutes.
5. Bump to 370. Wait 70 minutes
6. Turn off the oven and let cool naturally.

If this sounds like a lot of work...you might be right. But its super low effort work and it's spread out so it doesn't really feel like work to me. Basically ever 3 weeks or so, I spend 5 minutes prepping the oxiclean bath and maybe another 5 or 10 rinsing the bottles out afterward. Since I work from home, I can do the oven part the next morning, takes about 2 hours start to finish but is really only about 2 minutes of actual work (getting up and bumping the temps when the timer goes off). So it's about 20 to 30 minutes of actual work every 3 or so weeks, and even the "intense" part is done over 2 days.

All very low effort and I always have a shelf full of sterile bottles ready so bottling night is grab and go. If I prime with sugar cubes and rack straight from the carboy to the bottles, I can do a 2.5 gallon batch in 20 or 30 minutes from setup to capping. I'll mix priming sugar and do a bottling bucket if the batch demands it.