Cleaning Bottles?

[Cube]

There has been no mention of bleach and vinegar here ( in this thread ) thus far. I use these exclusively for fermenter, bottles, scissors etc, and also save the mix in 2 ltr bottles for the odd quick clean of whatever.

Bleach as a sanitiser is good, bleach and vinegar together is the best sanitiser I believe. No rinse, cheap and easy to use and source home brand. This kills anthrax for gods sake.

10mls to 5 ltr water of each is the recipe for no rinse. Just dry on a rack. In saying that, I am using 10 ltrs water to about 8 mls of bleach and vinegar on my bottles now.

Reason for this is when I 'acquire' my glass stock I spend a bit of time:

Hot water bath with a smidgen of suds to remove label and glue, then
Bleach and vinegar mix for 10 mins, then
dry and store
brew day - bleach and vinegar at no rinse.

Just emptied bottle of beer - triple rinse hot water and stored.
then just 10 mins no rinse prior bottling.

I treat both glass and plastic the same, except for the hot bath for removing labels.

Oh - NEVER EVER mix bleach and vinegar together, always mix one to water, swirl, then the other. If you do, it may well be the last bottles you clean for some time, if you're lucky

 

[Pollux]

I use bleach and vinegar, 1.6ml per litre....

No issues so far...

 

[kevo]

IIRC the bleach/vinegar method works because the pH changes so dramatically that bugs etc can't handle it?

I had thought that you needed to rinse with the bleach/water mix first, then with the vinegar.

Would there be the neccessary change of pH if the whole lot was mixed up together? Or does it not actually make any difference?

Kev

 

[Goofinder]

From what I remember, it's the bleach that does the work, but adding the vinegar lowers the pH so that it can work more effectively.

You just need to make sure your stuff is clean first, then use the bleach/water/vinegar solution (contact time 30 seconds).

 

[Tim]

Bleach and Vinegar???
Seriously, its cheaper to buy a 100mL bottle of iodophor which will last you for over a year (and its about $10). The benefits are you also do not have to rinse.
If you are going to bother spending money on quality ingredients the last thing you should be scrimping on is a sanitiser.

 

[Cube]

Bleach and Vinegar???
If you are going to bother spending money on quality ingredients the last thing you should be scrimping on is a sanitiser.

:huh:
:blink:

 

[buttersd70]

I didn't mention it by name, I could see a flame war happening, but when I said no rinse, I was referring to bleach vinegar. 1.6ml/L as someone already said.30 second contact time. No rinse at this dilution. 1250L of sanitiser available from 2L of each at a cost of about $3.00, and considering that it only needs a little in, and is swirled around and discarded, thats a lot of sanatiser.

and in response to

If you are going to bother spending money on quality ingredients the last thing you should be scrimping on is a sanitiser.

well, if its good enough for Charlie Talley its good enough for me. And as far as sanitisation of the bottles is concerned, Talley's opinion, stated in his basic brewing podcast was:

James Spencer: So if someone cleans well enough, in theory, then you wouldn't have to sanatise?
Charlie Tallie: Its recommended, but it's not necessary. Absolutely. Its an insurance policy, basically. You're taking out a little bit of insurance on how well you cleaned.

 

[Back Yard Brewer]

Hi all.

I was wondering how many of you here don't steralize your bottles for your home brew.
I personaly clean my bottles out with bottle wash and brush and then stand a small amount of steralizer in each bottle and leave for an hour or two, then rinse out twice and there are ready to go. This is with plastic bottles. For glass I wash them, then cover the tops with foil and leave them in an oven for 1 hour at 170F.

I know people that Just wash the plastic bottles (bottle wash) and don't use any steralizer on them. I have another mate that just used to rinse out the glass bottles and use them again. I have never noticed any difference between the beers, certainly no infections at all.

Makes you wonder how much cleaning is needed sometimes.

Rinse after drinking, stack into a crate, remove from crate, rinse with water and check there are no specks of crap inside, bottle, condition and drink. Then start again. I very rarely have any problems. Yep slack I know, but it works for me.

BYB

 

[kevo]

Charlie Tally invented Starsan?

 

[buttersd70]

Charlie Tally invented Starsan?

The one and the same.Invented 5.2 , pbw and a bunch of other stuff

 

[kevo]

And still recommends bleach and vinegar.

Not bad.

 

[buttersd70]

And still recommends bleach and vinegar.

Not bad.

actually, he reccomends starsan :lol: , but states that bleach and vinegar is good. I read a transcript of another interview where they asked him why use starsan if bleach and vinegar is so good, or words to that effect. His response was that the foaming action in the starsan allows it to get into nooks and crannies that the bleach/vinegar solution can't. (and I supose that logic could be applied to any non foaming agent.)

 

[Jamz]

+1 for bleach vinegar solution

For the how's and why's of why its great, get it from the horses mouth. This podcast interviews the creator of Starsan about his product and he spends half his time talking about bleach and vinegar instead: http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-29-07.mp3

 

[staggalee]

Rinse after drinking, stack into a crate, remove from crate, rinse with water and check there are no specks of crap inside, bottle, condition and drink. Then start again. I very rarely have any problems. Yep slack I know, but it works for me.

BYB

If I might add to that, I thought my bottles were always clean but they had a very very thin buildup of "film" inside that was almost impossible to detect, just from reusing the same bottles for years.
About 30g. sodium percarbonate in each bottle then filled with very hot water , left to stand a few hours and you could see the brown film stripped and frothing out the top of the bottle.
Prior to using it, I would have bet money on how clean those bottles were, so thanks to whoever gave me the tip a couple of weeks ago re. the sod.percarb. :super:

staggalee.

 

[PostModern]

About 30g. sodium percarbonate in each bottle

Are you sure about that?

 

[staggalee]

Are you sure about that?

Supplier said about 50g. per litre of water.
Why do you ask?

staggalee.

 

[PostModern]

Because I use about 2 tablespoons in a 30L fermenter and it works really well. A whole ounce per bottle sounds like a waste.

 

[drsmurto]

Supplier said about 50g. per litre of water.
Why do you ask?

staggalee.

Supplier wants you to buy more....

5g/L would be overkill IMO.

 

[staggalee]

Supplier wants you to buy more....

5g/L would be overkill IMO.

Crikey, no wonder they look cleaner than new now.
I`ll scale it back then.
Ta both.
{so that would be about a teaspoon per 750ml. bottle?}

staggalee.

 

[PostModern]

Make up the solution by the litre in a bucket and just soak the bottles in it. 10L bucket, use 50g and drop the bottles in.