A while back I sanitized a bunch of bottles with StarSan, gravity-drained as much foam out as possible, resealed them (put the caps on to slight firmness), then stored them shut.
I was expecting to use them in ensuing batches, but with some major life-interruptions, I unexpectedly brewed far less frequently in the past 6 weeks.
Are these bottles still good to use now, 6-8 weeks after sanitizing? They’ve been stored shut the entire time. There is a tiny bit of liquid residue in each that was the starsan foam I left in them when capping.
Sure, I could just re-sanitize… and perhaps should… but I’m lazy. Do I really need to?
How long would you let a pre-sanitized bottle store closed and still feel good about using it?
I agree with majorvices, but there’s no reason to sanitize until you’re ready to use. Starsan is a no rinse sanitizer, so any residue that remains after sanitizing won’t harm you or your beverages. For bottles, clean, store upside-down, then rinse and sanitize just before use.
If you used a fresh sani solution and new bottles, no need to re-sani. Even if a few microbes found their way in, there won’t be anything to metabolize, and so they won’t grow.
If the sani solution was previously used and/or the bottles are being re-used, give the liquid residue a close inspection. Is it clear or cloudy? Are there any suspicious-looking, fuzzy spots on the inside glass? If not, you are fine.
I almost always sanitize more bottles than I actually use when bottling - really don’t want to be a couple bottles short. Any extra get left on the bottle tree until dry, then when time permits I stretch plastic wrap on them to keep airborne stuff out and use them for later bottling, I guess I’m lazy but why sanitize more than once if I don’t need to. It’s nice when I have enough already sanitized bottles to do a batch and can save 30 to 40 minutes of dinking around.
Thanks guys. That’s what I thought, but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a hole somewhere in my reasoning.
Like Visor, I generally sanitize a whole bunch at once, beyond what I need for the batch at hand. Figured I might as well sanitize all the empties I have, as usually I would be brewing frequently enough that I’d be using them soon anyway. I didn’t expect to have 5 weeks between batches.