Tips For Making Bottling Day Less Painful

[DrewCarey82]

The labels come off eventually just make sure for ur first rinse your using sodium precarbonate or neopink or something nasty like that and I guarantee the buggers will fall off.

 

[andrewl]

As everyone else does, i generally rinse my bottles out after each use with warm water and the hand over the top. On bottling day i sanitize all the bottles with brigalow sanitizer etc. rinse with warm water and put on the bottling tree to dry.
Today i bought the liquid sanitizer from TCB, all need be done is mix it up in a spray bottle, squirt in the bottle and let it dry... Couldn't be easier!

 

[andrewl]

With the labels, I just soak them in warm water and get a scouring pad... takes a bit of elbow grease though

 

[berto]

Yeah i generally soak in water for 24 hours. Start with it fairly hot. Then hit them with the steel wool. Seems to work pretty well for Saporo bottles which are a right pain in the ass to get cleaned up.

 

[lucas]

i notice some of you say you store your bottles upside down after rinsing them (just after drinking them). how do you go about doing this? conveniently placed bottle tree or some other way? short of a bottle tree i cant think of a way to get the buggers to stay upside down

 

[Doogiechap]

Bottle trees Rock :super:
Cheap alternative- Next verge collection, spy a dishwasher, grab the washing drawers, lots of plastic coated spikes to hold plates/ err bottles upside down
Cheers
Doug

 

[spog]

one annoying habit i have with bottling,and am guilty of on many occasions is, capping the beer i am drinking while bottling. you would think i would learn but, nope,not me! <_<

 

[stephen]

The double bottle filler is a doozy GL. :beerbang: I saw it on your site yesterday as was truely inspired ! :super:
Does anyone have good tips for removing the very stubborn Crown Lager Labels ? I have used solvents, a two week soak in bleach, vegetable peelers, paint strippers. All too painful. I have stripped about 300 of my 500 odd crownies but am inherently lazy. Please no replies pertaining to the use of Kegs

[post="114670"][/post]​

I soaked mine in a solution of 1 teaspoon of pink stain remover to 5 litres of water overnight and the labels just slid off the bottle.

Worked great for me

cheers

Steve

 

[cliffo]

one annoying habit i have with bottling,and am guilty of on many occasions is, capping the beer i am drinking while bottling. you would think i would learn but, nope,not me! <_<

[post="114942"][/post]​

Thank God (or someone) I'm not the only one that does this

cliffo

 

[Weizguy]

one annoying habit i have with bottling,and am guilty of on many occasions is, capping the beer i am drinking while bottling. you would think i would learn but, nope,not me! <_<

[post="114942"][/post]​

Thank God (or someone) I'm not the only one that does this

cliffo

[post="115035"][/post]​

Have fallen for this only once.

Avoid this prob permanently by drinking from a glass. Works 4 me.

Seth (part-time AGer/ part-time bottler)

 

[Piste]

Went a similar way yesterday, got in after working outside, 6 pack in the fridge and a loose one, grabbed it and tore the cap off, aahhhhh, it was 6 day old Cervesa, god it was green.
I intended to see how it was progressing but not like that, having said that, I think it will be OK in a couple of weeks.

 

[thunderleg]

I use Grolsch bottles too. I hot rinse them and them after emptying and leave them upside down to dry. I didn't use any sanitiser at all for ages. I got all paranoid about infections and started using a squirt of sod-met in each one. It didn't make any difference so I stopped using it again. If I push I can get a 23 litre batch primed and bottled in under 20 minutes.

Kegs sound wonderful, but it really is a lot of crap to collect and carry around. I have five kegs sitting in my garage and some more on the way from C&C. I got a cheap second hand regulator, now I need some sort of gas supply. And then all the connectors and lines and valves. After that I need another ******* fridge, and somewhere to put it.

 

[lucas]

Ok, so I rinsed all the bottles I'm going to be using tomorrow (they'd been sitting in the shed a while and i thought it'd be worth at least getting the dust out), then sprayed 3 squirts of iodophor in each stubby and 6 squirts in each longneck (out of a spray bottle thinger). I've shaken them all about to make sure that the sanitiser makes contact with all surfaces then drained half of them and left the sanitiser in the other half as a bit of an experiment to see if they really need draining. they're all standing upright (i have no bottle tree as of yet, perhaps on Saturday) for the night; i plan on getting up early-ish (for a student ) and bottling, will the sanitiser still be doing its job in the morning or should they be sprayed and shook again? if the ones i didn't drain haven't evaporated should i drain them or will the iodophor have turned into yeast nutrient by then?

thanks again guys, your tips so far have already saved me a bunch of time!

 

[mika]

This little thingy wasn't my idea, but makes filling the bottles a lot easier/ quicker, and it's cheap !
The capping bench is a $12 special from the Salvos

 

[Zwickel]

Hi brewmates,
that is indeed a great idea to fill bottles, simple but effective, 10Points

 

[Chad]

...and then seal with a strip of glad wrap.

This is my method of storage too.
I got sick of cleaning the bottles everytime before filling, so I now also rinse the bottle immediately. A quick sterilise is all I do on bottling day.

 

[kitkat]

LOL, I rinse with water after I empty them, then put them away (uncapped, except for the PET bottles), and rinse them again with plain tap water just before bottling. Never had an infected bottle so far. Even if I do, so what, it'll be just one bottle, plenty more available

Maybe if I kept the bottles for years I'd bother with some kind of disinfectant, but usually the most I keep them is 6-9 months, and haven't had any bad bottle so far.

 

[AngelTearsOnMyTongue]

I agree that a hot rinse after use and another before bottling is probably fine. I also made a couple of boxes for storing all my cleaned empties upside down. I have two and I know that when they are full i nearly have enough for a brew.



I also use the flexible tube filling valve method as demonstratedby mika lika. This allows me to prime and fill a cartons worth at a time.

Also, I make all my own equipment. I have shown my handmade capper on numerous threads (So wont here), but also, here is my home made Bottle tree.



I will remake it one day of aluminium pipeing so I can rinse and sterilise the whole batch in one go.

That would be great because the only thing I hate about home brewing is the bottle preparation. :angry:

The only time I really scrub them is when I have been to a party with an esky of my beers, and bring the empties back and forget to rinse them all the next day.

cheers Brewsters

ATOMT

 

[barneyhanway]

I rinse well after use with hot water from the tap,
on bottling day I chuck all my bottles (PET and grolsch) in the dishwasher on the smallest cycle with no detergent, lids go in the cutlery thing.
This cleans them (they're pretty much clean already) and sanitises them (the heat of the drying cycle is pretty hot, haven't had a bottle related infection so far).
This is the most hands off method I've found, I can go and do whatever and let the dishwasher do the hard yards.
Then when its done I line em all up, put some sugar down the spout, then fill one by one from the fermenter with a bottling valve.
About half an hour I reckon for 23l (+ dishwasher time)

 

[AngelTearsOnMyTongue]

I rinse well after use with hot water from the tap,
on bottling day I chuck all my bottles (PET and grolsch) in the dishwasher on the smallest cycle with no detergent, lids go in the cutlery thing.
This cleans them (they're pretty much clean already) and sanitises them (the heat of the drying cycle is pretty hot, haven't had a bottle related infection so far).
This is the most hands off method I've found, I can go and do whatever and let the dishwasher do the hard yards.
Then when its done I line em all up, put some sugar down the spout, then fill one by one from the fermenter with a bottling valve.
About half an hour I reckon for 23l (+ dishwasher time)

Sounds great BH, but do you reckon it sprays up into the bottles? I agree the heat will probably sanitise prettywell, but I reckon not much would actually go inside them to rinse them.

Still, I like the sound of it. I'm thinking maybe I could make up a rack that holds the bottle on pipes, plugs into the outlet port (i.e. Remove the spray bar contraption). and actually does a good solid internal rinse.

Mmmmm. I reckon that ideas got legs on it.