My procedure for keeping bottles sanitized and clean is as follows. I always have two five gallon buckets with a strong water bleach solution sitting in the basement filled with bottles. Upon removing them from the buckets, I run them under tap water and give them a thorough rinse. Place them in a rack upside down to dry. Once dry, place them into cases and store until I need them.
On bottling day, I take these bleached bottles and give them a Starsan soak for three minutes or so and invert them once again for about five minutes.
Assuming water from the tap is sterile, can I skip the Starsan soak?
There is the possibility of dust carrying bacteria or yeast/fungus spores getting on the bottle lip. A quick rinse with Starsan just before bottling takes care of that. Get a vinator http://www.homebrewing.org/Vinator-Bottle-Washer_p_2472.html . Much faster and easier than soaking.
The soaking isn’t much of a hassle. Takes me 12 minutes and I do it at my leisure. The Fastrack looks like something I built so nothing touches the lip or inside the bottle. I had an 16X16" square piece of plexiglass 1/4" thick. I drilled 25 1" holes and drain them over a square staples plastic tub. Nothing touches the bottles.
I personally would not be comfortable using bottles that had not been sanitized shortly before use. There are just too many ways for contaminants to find their way in while the bottles are stored, so sanitation is not an area where I want to take any shortcuts.
I second this. If your bottles are thoroughly cleaned and rinsed out after their contents have been poured, I would skip the whole bleach thing. Store the clean and dry bottles in case boxes, and on bottling day either soak them if that’s your preference, or give them a sanitizing squirt with the Vinator. (Either way, I prefer the non-foaming SaniClean over Star San for bottle sanitizing.) An added advantage for me to sanitizing right before bottling, is that I generally bottle carbonated beer from a keg with a Beer Gun, and the pre-wetted bottles help minimize foaming.
I rinse my bottles well immediately after pouring the contents. Later, I hand wash them with dish detergent, rinse them, let them drain, and put them in a cardboard beer case.
On brewing day, I put a solution of star san in the vinator. Then I dip the tip of the bottle in the star san solution,
then upside down on the vinator nipple for two squirts of sanitizer, and then rotate the bottle about 90 degrees for two more squirts.
I sanitize six bottles at one time, fill, and cap with sanitized bottle caps, and then repeat the process. So far, no infected brew.
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.
I also immediately rinse a bottle after use. When bottling day comes, I wash with OxyClean (free–no fragrance), rinse with one of those bottle-washing gizmos I screw onto the faucet, let dry, and then soak in StarSan just before bottling. I’ve had no problems.
I also rinse and drain after opening. I soak 32 bottles at a time in warm water and OxyClean (no scent) for 24 hours in a cooler. The bottles get blasted with one of those carboy washers that screw on the faucet. They then sit upside down in a 5 gallon bucket to drain, and then get a small square of aluminum foil pressed over the opening. When bottling time comes around, I either do a quick soak in Starsan (in a wallpaper tray), or the bottles go through a heavy wash in the dishwasher (no soap). It may sound a bit excessive, but the process works and is really pretty easy once you get the routine down.
Here is how the bleach thing started. When I was a young brewer 17 years ago, I simply rinsed the bottles after pouring the beer and ran a brush through them and sanitize on bottling day. After doing this for a year or so and reusing the bottles over and over, I produced a couple batches of gushers. When I held the full beer bottle to the light, I could see the brush strokes lined with tiny bubbles on the glass. I never wanted to go through that again and wanted to make sure th bottles were completely clean before sanitizing and bottling.
Yes, I love that yeast too and I’m going to keep using it. I’m just taking a long ago recommendation from Mark (S. Cerv) and not rely on only StarSan for sanitizing.
I started a thread in bottling category to ask questions about bleach solution but I’m not getting much response so I’ll try it here.
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?
-What is a minimum soak time to do the job?
-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?
I agree. In talking with my buddies who home brew, those of us who rinse the bottles immediately after pouring with hot water never have a problem with stray infection. A good StarSan soak on bottling day, an inverted drain for an hour, and a spritz around the top just before bottling, and I am good to go. I am on the 6th or 7th re-use of 4-5 cases, without any issues.
If you never clean bottles with a brush, you can get gradual build up of beerstone on the bottom after a few cycles of use - visible when held up to light. It’s then quite difficult to get out, even with a brush. I now give used bottles a good rinse under the tap after pouring a beer and then put them in the dishwasher. Then just sanitize the good ones on bottling day and separate out the ones with beerstone for brushing or another run through dishwasher.
This is similar to what I do. I had some early problems with infected beers and bottle gushers and I got a lot more diligent with cleaning bottles. I usually sink rinse the bottles after they’ve been drunk and store them away. And then a couple days before bottling day I soak them all in hot PBW/Oxyclean Free water for an hour or so. Then I will rinse them well and let them drip dry on the bottle tree and then on bottle day fill the sink with star san water, soak about 5-6 bottles at a time. Fill and cap them one at a time. Usually not too bad for my small 2.5-3 gallon batches and my beer quality has improved.
I’m also not opposed to buying the occasional case of new bottles for big comps like NHC. Every so often bottles leave circulation, get left at a meeting, friends house, get too gunky etc.