Steriizing Bottles

[jdsaint]

hey guys I am sterilizing bottles by using a teaspoon of neo pink in 4 litres of water filling bottles to the brimm and then scrubbing with bottle brush, rinsing in cold water straight after and letting sit upside down to dry. Is the right? As I plann to bottle today as my brew has had a consistent fg over 3 days. Also does it hurt to sit them up right as I can only fit around 15 largies upside down at a time

 

[pint of lager]

The instructions I have seen for neopink, or PSR which is the same product is:

1-2 teaspoons per litre of hot water, wash equipment and rinse immediately in cold water. I suspect that the product will kill anything it comes into contact with, but after rinsing (which of course is required, you don't want neopink in your beer) the cleanliness of the equipment is at the same level as your rinse water, it is no longer sterile.

The best course is to leave the bottles upside down to drain and dry after cleaning and rinsing, then, when you need to fill them with beer, use a decent no rinse sanitiser such as iodine, phosphoric acid, hydrogen peroxide, star san, or whatever other product you have similar.

Buy another crate so you can store all your bottles upside down, nothing like finding a dead cockroach, mouse or fly in a bottle you want to fill.

 

[jdsaint]

bottling within the hour, bottle cleaning is happening as we speak, and i only used 1 teaspoon of neo pink to 4 litres of warm water, my bottles are not sitting long

 

[Lobsta]

since you are about to bottle, you can probably just chance it that the rinse water is not gonna contaminate it too much and the same for sitting there drying, but i wouldnt make a habit out of it. are you using PET bottles or glass ones? coz i am a huge advocate of heat sterilising (baking) my bottles. if you are using glass post back and ill fill ya in on my method.

Lobby

 

[InCider]

I used to just pressure wash my bottles! :lol:

Rinse after use, pressure wash on bottling day.

Easy.

InCider.

 

[Mantis]

Only just getting back into this after many years but used to ferment many Coopers kits. I rinse bottles after use and then check them for nasties before bottling while rinsing with hot water from the tap. Then with all bottles standing on the sink I pour a kettle of boiling water over them getting some in each bottle. Drain one at a time and fill. Only ever had one or two bad bottles doing this.
When bottling tomato sauce I put a bit of water in each bottle then put them in the oven on their sides at 120 deg for 20 mins or so. Again, drain and fill.
Not a fan of chemicals

 

[jdsaint]

glass bottles

 

[Mantis]

glass bottles

If you are asking me, then yes, glass bottles

 

[Lobsta]

well, what i do to sterilise (yes sterilise, not sanitise) my bottles,

- first i wash them out with Woolworths select generic napi san (its the only one i could find that didnt have fragrences), which is really good. i get bottles off my dad who drinks heinekens a lot, but he isnt that great at cleaning them out after use, so i usually get to them and they have a good layer of scum in the bottom. but after a few hours soaking in the napi san (made up the the concentrations on the container: 1 level capful to 14L of water) the scum has usually already floated out of the bottles, or if it is still in there, it comes off with a good shake. this is also a really good way to remove labels off the bottles, the napi san just dissolves the glue and they usually just fall off

- then i rinse them in a bucket of water, which i have to change every 20 or so bottles (stubbies) coz there is too much napi san in it (the way i make that call is if it foams up very much when i shake it in the bottle)

- leave them to dry outside for a day or so

- when you are ready to sterilise them (so within 1 day of bottling), get all the bottles and a roll of aluminium foil and put cover the tops with al foil, this is to stop nasties getting in the bottles after the oven baking is over before you bottle them

- once they all have al foil caps, put them into the oven (i can fit 30 stubbies or 15 tallies in my oven, so half a regular batch), with the over OFF. DO NOT PRE HEAT THE OVEN!!!

- slowly raise the temp to 180 degrees C,

- once it has reached 180, leave it there for 30 mins

- at this point they should be rather sterile, but just for good measure, i raise them to 220 and leave them there for 10 mins, just to give them a bit of a blast; at this point, they should be sterile enough to perform surgery with, or very close to it

- when you have finished the baking, turn off the oven, but DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR!!! probably the most important point of the whole process is not opening the door and letting the bottles cool down slowly or they will thermally shock and crack or worse. i usually bake them at night and leave them to cool down while i am asleep.

- when they are cool i.e. the next morning; take them out of the oven carefully as to not disturb the al foil caps, which should still be on.

- leave them in a place where they wont be disturbed until bottling day.

- i remove the al foil caps caps just before i fill them with beer.

if any bacteria or other nasties have survived this process, they deserve whatever beer they get, and just throw out any infected bottles, coz NOTHING is gonna get rid of them

hope this helps

Lobby

 

[bonj]

Lobsta, that seems awfully tedious

I used to just wash them with the bottle wash powder, some sodium met (it's not as bad as people make out), and rinse using tap water. Never had a single infection and either did my father out law who still uses the same procedure. (I keg now, and when I bottle from the keg, I use iodophor as a no-rinse... dead easy).

If I was doing it now, I'd use the procedure that pint-of-lager outlined above.

 

[Mantis]

I have glass bottles out in the shed, some upright some not, gathering dust. I will use my method of hot water wash then boiling water rinse on them when I bottle the brew in a week or so. I will let you know one way or the other on the results.
I still dont like chemicals
But I hope they put the right ones in me wed week

 

[Tyred]

Lobsta, it seems like anawful lot of work. Ten again, sterilize (as opposed to sanitise) takes more effort.

Personally, I rinse, after emptying a bottle. Wash and allow to dry. Before bottling, I rinse with starsan (bottle-washer) and put it on the bottle tree. I used to use sodium met but had to give it up as the vapours tended to burn my olfactories.

 

[Lobsta]

the way i justify my tedious regime to myself is that really, its not that much work, once you have done it once, its not really that hard to do. and secondly, it reduces the chances of a bottle bomb a lot, and considering that i store my bottles under our several thousand dollar full size slate bottomed pool table, i can live with the extra work.

plus i think that the fact that i do a science course at uni makes me more fastidious when it comes to cleaning than the average bear...

 

[solidghost]

Won't be better to just buy new bottles? Less effort and overall could even be cheaper!

 

[Lobsta]

Won't be better to just buy new bottles? Less effort and overall could even be cheaper!

if you trust the cleanliness of the bottles you buy... remember, this is glass, not PET. something about beer coming from plastic bottles just makes me shiver...

 

[Tyred]

What about a case swap ? That's all in plastic - in Queensland at least. That should make you shiver, but for different reasons.

 

[Lobsta]

What about a case swap ? That's all in plastic - in Queensland at least. That should make you shiver, but for different reasons.

i have heard that i have to adjust my rule to allow for case swaps. will have to add a first amendment to my plastic beer bottlees rule.

 

[sponge]

I just always have glass schooners and midis (for those who just want a 'sample'... i know, i get offended as well) on hand for when I have people come over for drinks. Id rather drink a schooner of beer over a bottle of beer any day. You get to see the clarity and head of the beer much more easily in a schooner.

This is pretty much the only reason im still sticking with the plastic bottles. And of course so you can feel how carbonated a beer is...


Sponge

 

[Blackfish]

I use a simplified version of Lobsta's method. Mainly because I caught a wierd chemical taste in a couple of bottles of one of my early batches :icon_drool2: . It was probably in my head, but to satisfy the doubt, and go a bit more chemical free I do this:

Night before bottling day: load the oven with rinsed bottles. Take them up to 200degC Switch the oven off and go to bed. Check SWMBO is not making scones the next day. Next day, prep the bottling area and when set, go and carefully load a crate of now cool, sterile bottles. Fill & cap.

When drinking, remember to rinse twice with cold water and store inverted until dry. Once dry, I cardboard box them (empty wine cases are good) to keep the dust out. If I'm good about the rinsing, I can usually go from the box straight to the oven next bottling day. Not that hard really IMHO.

 

[Whistlingjack]

Baking is a very effective method, but as Bonj suggests, tedious.

If you don't like chemicals then by all means avoid them, but bear in mind that hydrogen peroxide degrades to oxygen and water in a matter of minutes and is therefore undetectable in your finished beer.

WJ