Do any of the bottle cleaning gizmos at Morebeer, AIH, Northern Brewer actually work?
Certain yeasts (looking at you Belle Saison) leave a frustratingly persistent sediment/residue after bottle conditioning.
I haven’t ever found anything that a good rinse right after the beer is poured (or the next morning if its one of those kinds of evenings) can’t take care of. I do have one of those bottle blast rinsers and they work really well and attach to a garden hose fitting.
That said, something like Belle Saison you want to make sure is completely gone since it is diastaticus. There again, a hot oxiclean soak has taken care of all but the most grungiest bottles.
Yeah, I always just use a hot alkaline soak followed by a bottle brush. Repeat if necessary. I have used a sanitizer injector for final rinsing and sanitizing, but only on bottles that were already cleaned.
A couple of years ago I changed my bottle cleaning method. Now, I quick rinse immediately after pouring and let stand full of water. When finished drinking, I pour out the water and fill them with a bleach solution - 3/4 tsp bleach per quart of water, increasing the concentration as the jug of bleach ages. When 6 months old, it is half strength. These sit overnight. In the morning I rinse the outside manually with hot water, and use a jet washer for 15 seconds on each with hot water for the inside. I like that better than any other method I’ve tried.
Someone gave me a fastwasher 24, which seems to work pretty well. My only issue is you still have a find and buy a bin to use it in, and I think it takes about 3-3.5 gallons of cleaning solution. My big complain with soaking bottles in a bucket was how much cleaner I had to use, but the 24 doesn’t seem to offer much savings. It also won’t help you get labels off either. I haven’t tried any of the things you hook up to a drill to clean.
Delta has this bottle/glass rinser that you can put in your sink. It replaces the spray hose. That might make it easier to pour yourself a beer and rinse the bottle out right away.
Thanks all.
Rinsing the bottle before it dries is critical, and PBW makes a big difference.
I think I will try one of the little sprayers – they’re <$20; so if it saves a little hand scrubbing, it’ll be worth it. Maybe my technique is just flawed, but I have a dickens of a time getting the bottle brush into corner at the bottom.
The Fastwasher24, OTOH, is like $80… :o
I had the same trouble missing spots with the bottle brush. After drying, I could see streaks on the bottom that it missed. The bleach method hasn’t left a single streak or dirty spot since I’ve been doing it. And no scrubbing at all.
If you had a few pieces of PVC and a little ingenuity plus a cheap submersible pump you could built something really cheap.
I use 22 oz glass bottles with pry off tops.
Immediately after bottle is empty it’s rinsed several times with water
in the kitchen sink, then a couple squirts of Star-San.
After 2 cases of bottles (24 bottles) are gathered, they are filled and soaked overnight
with hot oxygen brewery wash (3/4 tsp per bottle). The following morning they are dumped out,then
rinsed with cold water, then rinsed again with cold water Iodophor.
The bottles are then placed upside down to dry.
It takes exactly 2 cases (24 bottles) of 22 oz bottles for one of my batches.
I no longer have issues with stuff inside bottles.
I use medical syringes (no needle) to measure out small amounts of Star-San & Iodophor.
Only make one quart at a time, sometimes 2 cups depending on what I’m doing.
when I used to bottle, I cut the loop off of a bottling brush and attached it to my drill. It got everything with no residue. Of course that was after soaking in B brite, PBW or one step. I never had funky bottles or gushers. But I also did bleach my battles so … yah.
Edit: Sorry - double post
+1 to this ^^^
I find a hot rinse when the bottle is emptied into the glass. Then I do a 30 minute soak in PBW followed by a 10 minute soak in StarSan just before filling again. I also use one of those up-blast faucets in my brewery sink. It does a nice rinse. I let the bottles drain upside down overnight and I’m good to go — ready to fill!
For cleaning bottles, I bought a cleaner that they use for dairy equipment. You can find it a a local farm supply store. It works well and is cheaper than PBW (note: I still use PBW to clean my brewing equipment before and after a brew day).
I rinse the bottles after pouring with water and then clean them when I need to bottle for a competition or to take a couple cases of homebrew to FL in the winter. Although you can use a pump driven cleaning system, I just soak the bottles and use a bottle brush to clean them. I then rinse with a water sprayer that attaches to the sink faucet in the brewery The bottles come out really clean. Yes it takes a small amount of elbow grease to clean a bunch of bottles, but it isn’t that bad.
I have to admit, you all make it more complicated than I do. A hot rinse after the bottle is empty. Another hot rinse followed by a good sanitizer rinse and upside down to drain (I use an empty dishwasher) then fill. Every once in a while I will give them a good hot oxiclean soak followed by a blast of hot water to rinse but aside from that, if they are so dirty that they need scrubbed, I usually just replace them.
I did that for a year or two without any problems, but then my OCD kicked in.
I mean, technically the real problem would be beer stone (eventually) and PBW isn’t gonna fix that. So why the extra work? As long as you get the yeast out and the bottle is visually clean … it’s clean for all intents and purposes AFAIC. SO why go through all the extra steps? When my OCD kicks in I give them a 30 minute hot oxiclean soak.
But that extra elbow grease doesn’t hurt anything. And if it makes you feel better – hell yeah!
I’m with you. I guess my bottles aren’t as dirty to begin with?
I mainly cleaned the bottles with a water blast at one time. I checked each one after it dried, and they all looked perfectly clean. Then I tried an oxi clean soak on some, and scrubbed with a brush. After drying, I could see streaks in the bottom where the brush didn’t get. I decided the clean looking bottles probably all had a thin film on the bottom that wasn’t coming out. That’s when I started testing different cleaning methods and finally settled on a bleach soak. It seems to work better than anything else I’ve tried, with no scrubbing. Normally I’m not a fan of bleach, but for glass bottles I’m confident a good hot jet washer rinse gets rid of the chlorine.
I like to be reminded why I long ago switched to kegging! I have one friend who persisted in returning bottles without rinsing despite my reminders. Eventually I just stopped giving him bottles. It is such a simple step to rinse after pouring the beer…
Not saying you are wrong, but if you leave oxiclean for too long (even overnight) it can leave a film. I wonder if that is what you were seeing?
I just started bottling again (I still keg too) but if I had to use a bottle brush one every bottle and go back to how anal about as I was 20 years or so again I’d probably not bottle. lol