Typically, I wash and sanitize my bottles right before I bottle. I use star San to sanitize. Should I be letting these dry before I bottle? Am I going too far when I sanitize the bottles? I reuse bottles from different beers I have bought. I always rinse them out with water before storing them in a sealed Rubbermaid container. Would it be OK to just store them and then bottle without washing since they have been thoroughly rinsed right after opening? I have always washed and then sanitized for fear of infection.
not sure if this healps, but in the rare instance I bottle, these are my steps.
1)drink beer from bottle and then rinse with water.
2)Once I have enough bottles I soak them in hot water and oxiclean in my bathtub for an hour or so.
3)drain bathtub and use showerhead to rinse the outside of the bottles
4)use an attachment to my hose spigot to rinse out the inside. After this I will store my bottles until I am ready to bottle.
- use a bottle tree with a sanitizer pump attachment to sanitize my bottles and then let them drain for a few minutes on the bottle tree
Best would be to triple or quadruple rinse each bottle as soon as it is poured. Store the rinsed bottles upside down to drip dry in an open container. An open container will prevent the chance of mold growth. Sanitize the bottles with Star San solution before filling, but fill before they dry. Star San is effective only when the sanitized surface remains wet.
I wash my bottles with PBW and a bottle brush, then sanitize with Star San, then put them upside down on the pegs in my dishwasher racks to drain. Then I fill and cap.
The nice thing about draining the bottles on the dishwasher racks, and using the open dishwasher door as a bottling “table,” is that any spilt beer lands on the open dishwasher door and not my kitchen floor. When I’m done, I close the dishwasher door and walk away, with a beer in hand of course. And yes, I agree with Star San being effective only if the surface is wet with the stuff. A little teeny bit of Star San won’t flavor the beer, so there isn’t an issue with that.
Brilliant!! I may have to do this!
Thanks for the responses all!
I run my bottles through the dishwasher, and then sanitise using starsan, and something similar to this:
I like the FastRack system for draining bottles after StarSan. Nothing touches the inside of the bottle and it’s very compact to store when not in use.
https://www.williamsbrewing.com/FASTRACK-LONGNECK-STORAGE-STARTER-SET-P3335.aspx
Only downside is it doesn’t work well with odd shape bottles and swing tops.
I used to do use the dishwasher, too, but now just use a bottle washer attachment on my kitchen sink, starsan, and a fast rack.
Only thing I’d caution about using the dishwasher is not to use any heat cycles. I am convinced the few bottles that broke while I was conditioning and cellaring my beers was due to thermal shock because I used a hot wash and heat to dry instead.
The only times I’ve had bottles break were on one of my early attempts at a saison (bottled far too early, when they reached the target gravity in the recipe software, rather than when they’d stopped fermenting), and Anchor bottles (necks shearing off when capping).
The only batches where I had broken bottles were nowhere near the carbonation likely in a saison which is why my theory is it was the thermal shock. Since I switch to my current approach, I haven’t had any broken bottles, even with the same recipes as those earlier batches.
For all you who use the dishwasher, do you use detergent? Isn’t Detergent supposed to be bad for the beer? Or do you just run it with water?
Also, do you remove labels before putting them into the dishwasher? If you don’t does it clog anything up?
I have done it both with detergent, and without. I tend to go with detergent these days, it doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the beer. I do sanitise with starsan immediately before bottling though. I use the dishwasher to remove the labels. It’s a pain in the arse to pick them up all out of the bottom of the dishwasher at the end, but it’s easier than removing them by hand, and I’ve never had them clog up the dishwasher.
Dishwasher detergent has a surfactant the reduces water spots on glassware. It also may kill the head on beer.
An overnight soak in Oxyclean in a bucket removes labels nicely.
After drinking a brew, a fill the bottles with about 4 " water, put my thumb over the top shake vigorously, rinse and repeat. Then later hand wash the bottles in regular dish detergent, rinse and let dry in the dish drainer before placing them in a cardboard case.
On bottling day, I rinse with star san using a vinator. I use two healthy sprays rotating the bottle about 45 degrees for the second shot of star san. I rinse six bottles at a time, turning them first upside down and then right-side up and placing them in a small cooking pot to temporarily contain them. After the last of the six has had the star san treatment, I grab the bottles from the pot, turn them upside down momentarily to drain any remaining star san, fill all six from the bottling bucket, apply bottle caps and then do six more.
I’ve never had a spoiled bottle of brew.