I’ve started soaking bottles (and fermenters) in Idophor solution after experiencing some late shelf life gushers. But idophor is expensive and bleach is dirt cheap. What is a good beach solution that would kill yeast? And what is a minimum soak time to do the job? Also, will a good rinse in tap water and drain dry then a couple shots with Starsan in the Vinator just before bottling clear out any chlorine residue or taste?
Unless your bottles are dirty, as long as they are clean and sanitized they should not be the cause of your gushers. I don’t think you will find that bleach will be much more effective as any other snaitizer, as long as your stuff is clean. From a packaging perspective, the beer should be pretty stable by the time it hits the bottles. I would look elsewhere to solve your gushing issues.
In another thread I posted:
I pretty much do what Lazy Ant and smkranz do. Immediately thoroughly rinse and drain after pouring and shoot them with Starsan in a vinator at bottling. And have had no problems with 39 of 40 batches.
But one batch began producing some gushers after 3 months in the bottle. That was a Best Bitters that was my first use of Lallimand ESB yeast. I screwed up the mash temp and mashed too high. After pitching I found out that that yeast doesn’t eat maltotrios. FG came in at 1.017 and the beer tasted sweet. Drinkable but sweet. After 3 months I started getting random gushers. The gushers were tough to pour but the beer actually **tasted BETTER. ** I’m guessing that the gusher bottles were not due to bacteria infection but rather due to a tiny amount of another yeast (probably Belle Saison) that didn’t get totally rinsed out of the bottles and took 3 months to get going enough to eat the maltotrios.
So I’m now also soaking all my bottles (fermenters too) in an Idofor solution, especially those that had Belle Saison in them. That yeast is a beast.
Hence I’m asking the questions in the post.
If the bottles are reasonably clean then the easiest way to ensure yeast death is heat, either in a hot wash in your dishwasher or dry heat in the oven.
I use bleach to clean my bottling equipment after bottling anything with a mixed fermentation because I use the same equipment for bottling clean beers. I use one tablespoon of bleach to one gallon of water and let it sit for twenty minutes. Then I rinse with hot water and then another soak with hot water and a crushed campden tablet for twenty minutes. Then a cold water rinse. So far no problems with bottle infections in clean beers and no bleach flavor carryover.
You could do the same for your bottles although I’d probably just rinse the bleach solution out with hot water. I take the extra steps to remove bleach because plastic is porous.
Yep, since I only bottle for comps primarily, I use the oven method. Easy peasy.
Not saying it isn’t possible, but I find it hard to believe that another yeast would still be alive and viable in the bottles unless they simply weren’t clean before you filled them. And then, I’d be more worried about what else is in there.
When I’ve had gushers, it’s either been dirty bottles or bottling too soon.
My bottle rinse procedure has always been: After pouring a beer and before even taking a sip, I go to the sink and vigorously rinse the bottle three times then drain dry.
The evidence that leads me to believe the gushers could be due to a tiny amount of a high attenuating yeast like Belle Saison remaining in some bottles is:
- It only occurred in some bottles.
- The gusher beer did not taste infected. Indeed, it tasted better and drier than non-gusher beer.
- It took 2-1/2 to 3 months for gushers to appear.
It could be that only a few yeast cells didn’t rinse out of the bottles and it took a long time to get going or it could be that it happened early and I just didn’t get to those bottles until late. Either way I need to make sure bottles are sanitized of yeast and StarSan can’t do that.
Heating 62 bottles (for a 6 gal. batch) in the oven would be a PITA and would not be kind to a plastic fermenter. 
I like your bleach solution formula and hot water rinse for the bottles and the extra campden tablet soak idea for the fermenter. Thanks
In the oven, it would obviously take more than one batch for that many. I still prefer it to wet sanitizing, each his own. Not getting the ‘not kind to a plastic fermenter’ argument, though. They stay in the oven for an hour (capped with foil), get cooled thoroughly(often overnight), then filled.
I dunno Jon, would a PET plastic BMB not deform in a 240*F+ oven? Maybe not but I’d sure be nervous.
I was speaking strictly of sanitizing glass bottles. Of course a BMB/oven combo would be bad. Sorrry for the confusion.
I use 1 shot glass of bleach (~2 ounces) per 5-6.5 gallon bucket/carboy. 20 minute soak. Triple rinse with cold water.
So that’s pretty close to reverseapache’s formula…~~ one tbs. / gallon. Thanks
If Iodophor is breaking your bank, this may be the wrong hobby for you. Also, why don’t you just use StarSan/Iodophor and a bottle injector? I just make up about a liter of StarSan and just use the injector on clean bottles. I figured out how much StarSan concentrate I need for 1 L of water and use an oral syringe to measure it out (it’s around 1.6 mL if I remember correctly).
Unless you’re using pre-boiled water to rinse, you’re undoing your bleach sanitization when rinsing. And at that point, what is your time and effort worth?
Starsan is not as effective against yeast as bleach or iodophor.
So use Iodophor. You still can figure out how to make smaller quantities. My point still stands about rinsing after using bleach.