Cleaning Bottles

[Suds_Moustache]

Ok so I am prepping some bottles for my first brew in a while and I have a few questions.

I managed to get some crown seals off my Dad and now have enough to put down my first two brews.
Some of the bottles were up in his shed and are quite dirty. Most are just dusty but a few have dirt/suspected cockroach droppings and so on i.e. they won't wash completely clean with hot water and some even resist a scrub with a bottle brush.
In my starter kit I got two plastic containers, one containing Sodium Metabisulphate and the other "bottle wash". Both are "Brew Cellar" brand.

When I originally started years ago my grandfather gave me a handful of white rocks, similar to the pebbles you'd find in a garden or driveway. I used to use these to clean the bottles by putting them in and shaking them around with some metabisulphate. Then I would rinse thoroughly and check the bottles for any signs of unwanted material.

As these bottles are in pretty rough shape, I thought maybe I would leave some metabisulphate in them for a day or so in an attempt to get them to a usable state. The bottle wash stuff is quite coarse so I presume it would act as the rocks used to, but how long is too long to leave either substance in the bottles.
For that matter, how long is too long to leave metabisulphate in your fermenter etc?
Are there better products out there? Obviously the smart thing to do is to thoroughly rinse your bottles immediately after use, but I am sure we've all had a couple of nights where the more you drink the more the old "ah I'll do it in the morning" mentality creeps in.
The bottle brush seemed kind of ineffective really. Would do people use?

 

[itguy1953]

You could soak the bottles in warm water with some dishwasher powder in it. Fill up your sink or a large container (rubbish bin, old fermenter etc) with the water and dishwasher powder (which is a mild caustic soda) and soak for a day or so. This will loosen up all of the grime, and then you can put on some rubber gloves, and lift each bottle out, and give them a go inside with the bottle brush.

Then rinse the bottles in clean water and check for any residual residue. Get yourself a bottle tree to hang the bottles on to dry.

Then if you want, you can resoak them in a no rinse sanitiser (like Idiophor) the night before the bottling day, and then pull them, and drain them on the tree, and take them off the tree to fill.

I have a mate who collects lots of old bottles and swears by the caustic soda wash to clean them before bottling tin them.

Barry

 

[razE]

You could soak the bottles in warm water with some dishwasher powder in it. Fill up your sink or a large container (rubbish bin, old fermenter etc) with the water and dishwasher powder (which is a mild caustic soda) and soak for a day or so. This will loosen up all of the grime, and then you can put on some rubber gloves, and lift each bottle out, and give them a go inside with the bottle brush.

Then rinse the bottles in clean water and check for any residual residue. Get yourself a bottle tree to hang the bottles on to dry.

Then if you want, you can resoak them in a no rinse sanitiser (like Idiophor) the night before the bottling day, and then pull them, and drain them on the tree, and take them off the tree to fill.

I have a mate who collects lots of old bottles and swears by the caustic soda wash to clean them before bottling tin them.

Barry

+1

I do a soak in water in the laudry tub with about a cup of bleach overnight, bottle brush them, rinse with hot then cold then hot water again to be safe, then onto a no rinse sanitiser (star san) and onto the bottle tree. Be carefull using HOT water with your cleaning products as it will pull the product up with the steam vapour thats produced and you will inhale it. I would recommend getting a hold of some star san, its more economical by far and if your LHBS doesnt sell it you can buy it from craft brewer, there link is at the top of the page.

Happy brewing

 

[Gavo]

I soak dirty/newly sourced bottles in a solution of Milton and water About two caps full to about nine litres of water for a day to a week depending on when I get back to them. This usually gets all of the hard to remove stuff to soften up and shake out and the labels fall off. After the soak I give them a good rinse and drain ready for bottling day. On bottling day use the usual no rinse sanitising routine.
I have found that Sodium Metabisulphate gets quite funky when left to soak for a few days and interestingly enough the lables, if any don't soak off. I would also steer away from dishwasing detergents for the same reason I don't wash my beer glasses in dishwashing liquid. The course bottle wash stuff will dissolve like any powdered detergent but is designed for cleaning brew equipment and bottles ready for sanitizing.

Cheers
Gavo.

 

[vicbrewer]

I got about 40 bottles the other day off a mate, any that had mold on the bottom of them went into the bin but all the rest I soaked in bleach for about 6hrs and rinsed with hot water and then cold water, it aslo made it easy to remove all the labels off the bottles

I have read that you only need to bleach new bottles once this is to remove any nasty's lurking in the bottle

naturally sanatise before filling the bottles with beer

 

[Pollux]

I soak in diluted dishwashing liquid/bleach, removes everything including labels, although I leave mine for a week.

 

[OLDS2006]

I soak in diluted dishwashing liquid/bleach, removes everything including labels, although I leave mine for a week.

+ 1, soaking for a week will save you thowing them away.

 

[katzke]

A good soak will do it. I use PBW (Powdered brewery wash) in hot tap water and leave over night. All the gunk lifts off including the mold blobs and labels. Some over there use napisan.

I then use one of the bottle washers you put on a faucet and blast out the bottles with hot tap water.

I put them in the dish drainer then sanitize and use or put them away and sanitize just before use.

 

[troopa]

Napisan soak overnight or longer will lift pretty much everything

if and when they are clean i use the bleach / vinegar mix

30ml bleach
30ml vinegar will make up 30Litres

or 1.8ml each for a 500ml spray bottle

Its looking like its horses for course and anything you do will get you to the same end result (clean bottles)
the difference is what path you want to take

To me "Clean" is something that im happy with if you get an infection well then you need to make it cleaner

 

[katzke]

Napisan soak overnight or longer will lift pretty much everything

if and when they are clean i use the bleach / vinegar mix

30ml bleach
30ml vinegar will make up 30Litres

or 1.8ml each for a 500ml spray bottle

Its looking like its horses for course and anything you do will get you to the same end result (clean bottles)
the difference is what path you want to take

To me "Clean" is something that im happy with if you get an infection well then you need to make it cleaner

Note on the Bleach & Vinegar. It is Bleach in the Water then the Vingar. If you do it any other way you can get gassed.

 

[flattop]

+1 Bleach and water soak, i have a large crate mixed up and i drop the bottles in for a week or so, turn them occasionally to make sure they are all wet.
When i lift them out i put others in. Once the glue and gunk is off you can dishwasher them or use sodium met or starsan or anything else.

Once they are clean they never need that much treatment again. Rinse well after you pour and they never cake up or dry out dirty.

 

[raven19]

If you still cant get them clean, don't be tempted to use them - pretty much a guarantee for bottle bombs!

The good thing is once they are cleaned once, they will be much easier to keep clean IMO.

If you come up short on bottles, buy a carton of your favourite beer and invite some mates around! :icon_cheers:

 

[DiscoStu]

Pink Stain Remover from you LHBS is what I use, soak the bottles in a large bucket of this for a couple of day. Takes labels off and any muck inside the bottle. Rinse really well then use a no rinse sanitiser like starsan