Sterilzing Your Bottles?

[Wax]

How long do I have to bottle after the bottles have been sterilised?

The reason is ask is I was given a heap of bottles and I sterilised them all in one go. There was about double the amount I needed for the last batch. Its been about 2 weeks since they where first sterilized and the remainder have been sitting (neck down) in a home made drying rack. Ill be ready to bottle another batch in about 2 more weeks.

Will I need to sterilize them again?
Will a good rinse with boiled water do the job?

Id be interested in hearing what your procedures are for sterilizing bottles and equipment.

Cheers
Wax

 

[big d]

two thoughts come to mind wax.
a bit of cling wrap and a rubber band over every bottle top
or if you have heaps just cap the bottle and when ready to fill rip off the cap and start filling.
i think the bottles should still be sterile and ok to refill.

cheers
big d

 

[Murray]

A good rinse with boiled water should do the job. You will find many people rely purely on rinsing and 'let the yeast do the work'.

I will usually cap my bottles with foil and bake them for an hour at 170C, they will keep just about indefinitely like that. A bit of a pain in the arse, uses a bit of electricity, but spreads the workload out a bit.

 

[deebee]

I have read posts on various forums from people (or is it just one person?) who claim to not sanitise bottles at all, just make sure they are very clean by rinsing several times with hot water immediately after use. And like everybody seems to say, "Never had a problem yet..."

So maybe it's OK.

In any case, your botts have been upside down since sanitising, you say. So no dust or dead insects likely to get in there. Probably be alright to bottle straight into them.

 

[joecast]

ok, just spent 2+ hours sterilising bottles (using bleach) today. dont tell me i just wasted my time!! i use the plastic bottles and try to rinse them each when empty and bleach them before filling.
joe

 

[wedge]

overheard a story from the bloke who supplies coopers all the pet bottle. He said when he found out that brewers where reusing the plastic bottles he was astonished. They are made for a one off use! Sorry Joecast. They dont keep their carbonation and after several uses the sides split along the seem. All according to him.

 

[Barnzy]

I have about 6 boxes (of 15) of the plastic PET bottles. Some of them have had about 5 brews go through them and they seem fine. Haven't noticed any loss of pressure (but i drink all my beer within 10 months) or had any bottles crack.

I got a stockpile of glass bottles just gotta invest in a bench capper.

Off topic, but did i read that people use champagne bottles for beer?

Cheers
Barnzy

 

[big d]

gday joe c
as a trial why dont you bottle the majority that has had your usual cleaning routine and a 1/2 doz that has just been rinsed with hot water or whatever,mark them as such and see if you notice any difference come drinking time.
barring some major infection i reckon they will all taste the same.
remember a bloke years ago that just washed/rinsed his bottles with adelaide tap water and had no probs what so ever.
like they say if its good enough to drink its good enough to brew with.
mind you on the occasion when i bottle i rinse and then rinse with one-shot then rinse again.just out of habit i guess

cheers
big d

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Hmmmm the trick is to find a no-rinse sanitiser, like Terminator or OneShot (same stuff, one is mine, the other is the name used by a certain Adelaide HBS. . .) then sanitising is just a swirl

hmmmm this is off the top of my pointy head but but 20 mins at 60C will sanitise anything, a quick rinse out the hot water tap won't work. Now, if the bottle has been cleaned really well with brewers detergent then the hot water rinse does not harm (nor good!!!)

I am going to go back to a pevious practise of mine: just b4 filling the bottle pour in 200ml boiling water (from one of those plastic 8L urns) swish it around and pour out the water, then fill with beer. This is AFTER sanitising the bottle with Terminator solution

I do not like chlorine bleach for sterilising bottles, much prefer a oxygen bleach (Nappysan) to help remove stubborn stains as with no chlorine there is no huge need to rinse and rinse the bottle

You can do too little sanitation but never too much

Jovial Monk

 

[big d]

just as an after thought jm i reckon the bottles if glass need to be warm as pouring boiling water into room temp bottles can lead to shock cracks appearing as ive found out.more so with the screw top bottles as i reckon the glass is thinner.

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Ahh yeah one or two bottles in every few batches break, have a nice 20L platic bucket under bottle so the glass falls harmlessly and gets tipped into rubbish bin, no probs.

reckon they have flaws in them and may have broken full of beer (oh no, sob sob)

I also only reuse reasonably robust brown glass bottles/stubbies. Green bottles, really thin walled screw cap bottles go to the recyclers. Hmmm I put down a couple kit beer batches, never looked at them after discovering mashes (and Grumpies helped big time with this. . .) when i checked them out some years later, a few of the ex Coopers glass stubbies had seperated, quietly blown into two parts


Jovial Monk

 

[joecast]

ive started saving my brown glass bottles recently so hopefully i can phase out using too many plastic. ive probably put three to four brews through most of them and they seem in good condition so far.

bigd,
as for the experiment, i wont be using the bottles i sterilised yesterday for about two weeks so i will most likely leave them capped for now and rinse them before use. if that works ok, then at least i know i dont have to sterilise and use them on the same day. that would save a lot of time and effort if i could spread them out a bit.
joe

 

[Justin]

If using bleach make sure you rinse 3 or 4 times with water, not just swirling, fill the whole damn bottle. I hate bleach now that I have tainted a batch of Dunkel Weizen with chlorine. Gives a medicinal taste. There are better sanitizers out there-if you can use them then do it.

Foil caps over the top of sterilized dry bottles will keep them sterile for ages.

JD

 

[Trough Lolly]

I make sure I give my bottles a good rinsing out after pouring the beer - unless I'm too wasted to do it

I use a detergent/sanitiser to wash the bottles with and then sanitise with the bottle injector sanitiser (a plunger unit that you invert the bottle onto and as you push it down, it squirts a stream of sanitiser up into the bottle coating every inch of the bottle inside).

I used to use Sod Met but now I use Iodophor as the sanitiser - 2ml in the injector solution and I have bottles that don't require rinsing and are ready to go in 20 mins.

I scrub the bottles with a bottle brush after every 2 to 3 brews - or more often if there is a noticeable film of sediment on the inside walls of the bottle - ciders tend to do that. I opened a bottle of William Tell cider that I had made some 3 years ago, last night - very tasty and quite dry and it had very fine particles clinging to the walls of the bottle - looked suss but tasted quite good and had excellent carbonation. (I don't normally drink cider, but needed some bottles for my robust porter!! )

Cheers,
TL

 

[johnno]

I've had a few sterilised bottles left over after bottling. When it comes time to bottle again I usually sterilise again as I dont want to take the chance.
I just use plain unscented bleach. Seems to work fine.

cheers

 

[wardy]

does anyone know what sterex is, that australian home brewing (brewcraft/liquorcraft) sell?? i think it is a chlorine base (my label has deteriorated). They say it's better than bleach, but i can still smell a lot of chlorine and i'm more interested in this other stuff you guys talk about.. .oneshot? terminator? where can i get these from?

 

[nathan]

Trough Lolly, what exactly does your bottle injector unit thingy do, and where did you get it?

At present, I soak my bottles in Neo Pink solution in the laundry tub for 10min, then brush them, then rinse. I haven't had any problems, but it's a pain in the arse (5+ hours to bottle a 50L brew!) and I'm looking for a better way - less scrubbin', more drinkin'!