First Bottling Day

[v8manic]

Well the time has come and tomorrow afternoon is the day to bottle my first batch. One thing i've forgot to read up on or ask questions about is how long before bottling should i sterelize the bottles.
I have got iodophor to sterilize with now and was wondering do i wash the bottles out with say my brewcraft detergent and then sterilise the bottle by soaking them in the water.
Just after a quick answer on the easiest way to do it so my beer still works.
Thanks Wade

 

[floppinab]

Good luck with it Wade hope your beer turns out a beeeaaaautaaaaaayyyyyyy

I assuming the worst and your bottles are full of crud and the usual detritous.

Your brewcraft detergent should be OK, get your water as hot as you can handle with a decent amount of detergent. Leave 'em soak for a good 10 or 15 mins, attack hard with a bottle brush, rinse a good 2 times with water.

Mix up your Iodophor solution, 5 min contact is all it needs, I usually drop the bottles in give 'em a good swish and pop 'em on the bottle tree which has already had a good spray with Iodophor as well.

Bottle away from there.

In future once you have emptied said bottles of your prized brews give 'em a good rinse straight away so there are no solids left in the bottles. Then you can just give 'em a quick rinse next time you are ready to bottle and then straight to the sterilizer.

 

[InCider]

PRESSURE WASH! :super:

It's easy, fast, water-wise and good if you're lazy! I never steralised after that - no bottle infections ever!

That's what I did until kegs Wade.

Are you using crown seal tallies or Coopers PET?

InCider.

 

[sponge]

and a pressure wash is....?

 

[v8manic]

Using long neck crown seals not using the dodgy looking pet bottles that came with the kit.
After i bottle tomorrow afternoon i'll be transfering my second batch into the second fermentor and adding the finnings and then putting my 3rd brew down which is a coopers draught style beer and i'm using a liquid dextrose?? still learning so please excuse my bad knowledge.
Thanks for the advice guys
Wade

 

[0M39A]

what i do is give them a soak in sodium percarbonate (no name nappy san).

this cleans off even the nastiest mankiest crud from the bottles with no scrubbing at all

then i store them in crates with glad wrap over the top until im ready to use.

before use i then give them a quick rinse with starsan (what i normally do is fill one bottle, shake, then pour from the first bottle to another one and keep going that way) and let them sit a few min then theyre ready to go

never had a problem with this method.

 

[hotboost]

Those dodgy pet bottles cut you bottling time to a qtr on capping . as you will find out and they are easier to clean.
And they dont explode as well.
Good luck

 

[InCider]

and a pressure wash is....?

High pressure hose rig. Forget sanitiser! FOREVER! until kegging of course!

Crown seals are the go if you have the choice (of course, that's my opinion after using both!) and they do explode like you would not believe. But do you want to drive in a Commodore or a Hyundai? Sure, one is cheaper to run in terms of time, but what makes you more comfortable?

 

[v8manic]

Ok another quick question guys how many bottles you reckon i should prepare i've got 36 there but how many on average long necks does a normal brew make?
Thanks Wade

 

[braufrau]

Using long neck crown seals not using the dodgy looking pet bottles that came with the kit.
After i bottle tomorrow afternoon i'll be transfering my second batch into the second fermentor and adding the finnings and then putting my 3rd brew down which is a coopers draught style beer and i'm using a liquid dextrose?? still learning so please excuse my bad knowledge.
Thanks for the advice guys
Wade

If you have a second fermenter you can use that as a bottling bucket. But you'll need about 1.5m of tubing.
Sanitise the fermenter and hose.
Dissolve 160g of dextrose in 160g of boiling water.
Microwave for 3 mins.
Add to the bottling bucket.
Fill the hose with boiling water (wear gloves) to start the syphon and syphon into a bucket until the beer comes through
and then into the bottling bucket.

Now you don't have to prime each bottle individually!

I syphon until the top of that doo-dad that the tap screws into is showing. Then I prime 2 stubbies and fill those from the fermenter and mark them with stars to show they are a bit groobly. The rest of the bottles are filled from the bottling bucket.

 

[Lobsta]

a couple of useful things that i learnt from the basic brewing podcasts (no affiliation blah blah):

iodophor does not sterilise, it sanitises, not sterilise. the difference is that sanitise = kills 99.9% of bacteria/organisms on the item and sterilise = kills 100% of bacteria on the items.

as far as chemical sterilisers go, there aren't any that are suitable for home brewing, coz a lot of the ones that are out there are concentrated acids which need to be rinsed off well if the equipment is to be used for brewing, then the whole purpose of it is lost. iodophor, sodium met, star san and pretty much all other chemicals out there for this purpose are sanitisers.

as far as the high pressure steam goes, i am not sure, i have a feeling that it may be a steriliser, but could only be a sanitiser (some viral or fungal spores or cysts are incredibly resilient to environmental changes.

one method that i am pretty sure does sterilise bottles, if done correctly is dry heat sterilisation.
-what i did for my bottles was after i had cleaned them out with my cleaning product (to get rid of the chunky bits and flies) and let them dry (important that they are dry), i put aluminium foil 'caps' over the tops to stop nasties from getting in after/during the baking.
-then i shoved them in a non-preheated oven (very important that) and turned the temp to 100 degrees celcius, non fan forced, and waited for it to reach that temp. when it reached that i left if for 5 mins then turned it up to 150. when it reached that i again waited for 5 mins. then i turned it up to 180. when it reached that i left it for 30 mins. then i turned it up to 220. when it reached that i left it for 10 mins, then turned off the oven.
-at this point you must leave the oven closed until it reaches room temp on its own again (about 6-10 hours, i just left it overnight). then, without disturbing the foil caps, you can store your bottles any way you want to until bottling day, confident in the fact that, if required, these bottles would be clean enough on the inside to perform surgery with. note,
**NOTE** this does not work too well with PET bottles.
-i did this with 60 heineken stubbies and they all came out perfect.
short of some of the bacteria that inhabit hot water geysers or sulfur springs, you can be relatively confident that this amount of heat for this amount of time will kill all bacteria/organisms in/on your bottles.

Comments on my method welcome

Lobby

 

[mika]

Fair few people seem to sanitise with the oven on this site. Personally never seen the point. Wash each bottle thoroughly, sanitise with a good no-rinse sanitiser, enjoy good homebrew.

 

[b_thomas]

a couple of useful things that i learnt from the basic brewing podcasts (no affiliation blah blah):

iodophor does not sterilise, it sanitises, not sterilise. the difference is that sanitise = kills 99.9% of bacteria/organisms on the item and sterilise = kills 100% of bacteria on the items.

as far as chemical sterilisers go, there aren't any that are suitable for home brewing, coz a lot of the ones that are out there are concentrated acids which need to be rinsed off well if the equipment is to be used for brewing, then the whole purpose of it is lost. iodophor, sodium met, star san and pretty much all other chemicals out there for this purpose are sanitisers.

as far as the high pressure steam goes, i am not sure, i have a feeling that it may be a steriliser, but could only be a sanitiser (some viral or fungal spores or cysts are incredibly resilient to environmental changes.

one method that i am pretty sure does sterilise bottles, if done correctly is dry heat sterilisation.
-what i did for my bottles was after i had cleaned them out with my cleaning product (to get rid of the chunky bits and flies) and let them dry (important that they are dry), i put aluminium foil 'caps' over the tops to stop nasties from getting in after/during the baking.
-then i shoved them in a non-preheated oven (very important that) and turned the temp to 100 degrees celcius, non fan forced, and waited for it to reach that temp. when it reached that i left if for 5 mins then turned it up to 150. when it reached that i again waited for 5 mins. then i turned it up to 180. when it reached that i left it for 30 mins. then i turned it up to 220. when it reached that i left it for 10 mins, then turned off the oven.
-at this point you must leave the oven closed until it reaches room temp on its own again (about 6-10 hours, i just left it overnight). then, without disturbing the foil caps, you can store your bottles any way you want to until bottling day, confident in the fact that, if required, these bottles would be clean enough on the inside to perform surgery with. note,
**NOTE** this does not work too well with PET bottles.
-i did this with 60 heineken stubbies and they all came out perfect.
short of some of the bacteria that inhabit hot water geysers or sulfur springs, you can be relatively confident that this amount of heat for this amount of time will kill all bacteria/organisms in/on your bottles.

Comments on my method welcome

Lobby

... or you could pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes or do as I do an pop them into the dishwasher with a sanitising product (not detergent).

either one works pretty well as a makeshift autoclave.

 

[Lobsta]

... or you could pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes or do as I do an pop them into the dishwasher with a sanitising product (not detergent).

either one works pretty well as a makeshift autoclave.

unless your dishwasher or microwave can generate 15-30psi of pressure, they won't work as an autoclave. autoclaves pressurise the air inside so that water boils at a higher temp so that sterilising temps can be reached (at 15 psi, water will boil at ~121C, at 30psi, it will boil at around 132C). another problem with using the dishwasher to wash your bottles is that many dishwashers (especialy newer or more expensive ones) have a rinse aid in them that aids in 'wetting' the stuff inside by making the water form smaller droplets. where this is bad for your bottles is that rinse aid basically destroys head retention in your beer, which can still have some effect from the bottles. if you dont have rinse aid in your dishwasher, and can use a different style of cleaner in it, then it will be able to wash your bottles, but as far as sterilising or even sanitising, i would be sceptical...

 

[barry2]

Ok another quick question guys how many bottles you reckon i should prepare i've got 36 there but how many on average long necks does a normal brew make?
Thanks Wade

I use the Coopers PET 740ml bottles and work on getting 28 from the normal 23 litre brew.
After use I give the bottles a good rinse immediately,let them dry and put them away.The day before bottling I soak the 28 in a laundry tub of bleach solution for an hour+.Rinse them thoroughly and leave them overnight on a bottle tree.Next day move the tree to the fermenter table.No problems in over 50 brews.

 

[Doogiechap]

There are another 82 good ideas here .
Personally, a quick rinse after they are emptied, a squirt of no rinse sanitiser with one of these and bottle. A number of the other processes noted are great but for me that is the fastest way to deal with the horror of bottling. Well that was until I bought some kegs .
Cheers
Doug

 

[RobboMC]

Using long neck crown seals not using the dodgy looking pet bottles that came with the kit.
After i bottle tomorrow afternoon i'll be transfering my second batch into the second fermentor and adding the finnings and then putting my 3rd brew down which is a coopers draught style beer and i'm using a liquid dextrose?? still learning so please excuse my bad knowledge.
Thanks for the advice guys
Wade

I've been using those 'dodgy looking' PET bottles for 3 years, now over 30 brews, and have only ever lost one with a broken cap.
The bottles themselves are excellent, just the caps can strip the thread if overtightened. I reckon Coopers wouldn't put there name on them if they weren't OK. And you can feel the pressure insdie them to see if your carbonation is happening.