Sterilizing plastic PET bottles

[zambezi]

In the kit I got they reccomend sterilising everything with boiling water. Great. Even the PET bottles included in the kit? NO! Put boiling water in your plastic PET bottles, and they will melt, shrink and go out of shape! I guess you have to use one of those chemical sterilisers then huh?

 

[dane]

I have never used PET bottles, but your right when you say that they will shrink with boiling water!!

You will have to use a chemical steriliser - such as Pink Cleaner or Sodium Metabisulphite (sodium met.) Rinse the bottle in the solution and allow to air dry (the fumes do the steralising) - once they are dry I usually rinse the bottles with cooled boiled water to make sure there is no cleaning solution left.

 

[bL@De]

One thing I learnt very quickly when sterilizing everything was some solutions can cause cancer so I just use the piranha steamer and hot water which so far has done the trick nicely.

Neo Pink the stuff fiscus mentioned is top quality stuff, well worth it!

 

[grumps2002]

I just throw my rinsed PET & glass bottles into a chlorine solution and leave them soaking for 1 day to several days then rinse with water and leave to dry on the bottle tree. So far no problems.

I'll have a half

Grumps2002

 

[oldrusty]

I was using 'Milton' babies-bottle steriliser.... (got funny looks in the supermarket... ) .....until I saw others mention using bleach, so I checked it out..... it's the exact same stuff only in higher concentration and a 1/10th of the price/ltr !!

as grumps2002 says, just soak'em... I have a plastic rubbish bin I soak/wash the P.E.T. bottles in o'nite in batches, rinse, fill with diluted bleach o'nite, rinse, dry inverted or go straight to prime n fill.

cheers!

 

[RegBadgery]

A bleach solution or iodophor will work fine with PET bottles.

cheers
reg

 

[Vindaloo]

I've been using PET exclusively for a while now. Here's my method:

1. Rinse thoroughly with warm water.
2. Sterilize with sodium metabisulphite (quite common, look for "Brewer's Sterilizer" or something"
3. Rinse with cold water.

Yeah, it's worked great, never had a bottle infection. At least, never had one that tasted bad.

YMMV.

Vinds.

 

[PMyers]

I rinse all my bottles with a solution of Brewshield. You don't have to rinse them after sterilising. I place about 20mls in one bottle, fill with water and, using a funnel, I transfer the solution from bottle to bottle. I do this just prior to bottling as you don't have to rinse or dry them.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:

 

[SIMO]

Forget sodium met it's about the least effective sanitiser.

The two i use are
1,household bleach 50-100ml/lt with a contact time of at least 15mins.
Soak bottles over night. (caustic soda is great for removing stubborn deposits also)
The pink stuff leaves a hard to rinse of residue on bottles.

2, Isopropol alcohol in a spray bottle (give the fermenter a quick spray before using).

Sodium Met is a powerful antioxidant/preservative hangover causer, and is used in the beer and wine industry in this capacity not as a sanitising agent. I can't figure out why it's sold as a steriliser in hbs's apart from any thing else the fumes stink and don't really kill bacteria, bleach/alcohol are both cheaper/more effective and easier to rinse off without poisioning yourself with toxic fumes.

Cheers
SiMo

 

[dane]

I rinse all my bottles with a solution of Brewshield. You don't have to rinse them after sterilising. I place about 20mls in one bottle, fill with water and, using a funnel, I transfer the solution from bottle to bottle. I do this just prior to bottling as you don't have to rinse or dry them.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:

What's brewshield?

 

[PMyers]

Fiscus - Brewshield is a liquid steriliser that you can find at any HBS. I fill a spray bottle with this stuff and saturate the brewing area prior to brewing. I also use it to resterilise a dropped spoon etc... and to keep things clean as I go.

SIMO - I would like to know where you got the information regarding SO2's inability to sterilise. I have heard a lot of people on newsgroups etc stating that it does not work, but no one has been able to come up with any evidence to support this. Could you point me in the direction of some such evidence as I would like to read up on this myself.

Cheers,
Pete

:chug:

 

[Doc]

I use Pink Stain (P.S.R)
Fill laundry tub with hot water and add pink stain.
Throw in bottles and use a bottle washer to scrub.
Rinse in water and fill with beer.
Worked well for me.
I only keg now because the whole bottling thing got too time consuming + having to wait for 3 weeks before you could drink the contents.

Doc

 

[sboulton]

sodium met is easy to stuff up with . i use a product called Iodophor Sanitizing Solution basically it is a iodine base you mix it 1:1000 and 250 ml bottle cost approx $8:00 you use a spray bottle for your equipment & bottles leave in for 20 mins then tip out your residue , throw in the beer and away you go , no rinsing , i have heard a lot of stories about sodium met stuffin up brews ..yes most of the time it was used incorrectly, have never had a problem with iodophor

wash in uncented bleach = cheap and very effective cleaner .
if you have stains etc just leave to soak in bleach for a couple of days


that is my 20 cents worth

regards
simon