So I have inherited an almost 40 year old case of Stroh’s returnable long necks in the old style hard sided case. It has been sitting with open tops up in my father’s garage since he stopped drinking a lot of beer. Has anyone cleaned up. Ottles this old to use for their own home brew? I have no idea how durable le bottles were back then, but I would guess pretty strong if they were returned to be used over and over again. They are going to take some elbow grease to clean up, just not sure if it will be worth it. Ideally, I would rather not soak them as I would like to keep the labels on. Anyone have any thoughts?
Back when my dad homebrewed in the mid 90’s, he ended up with several cases of returnable miller lite bottles. When I started brewing, he gave them to me.
I’ve not had any issues with them. The wax-coated carboard crates are way better than the bottles though, they’re really nice compared to a regular cardboard box.
The box is what sold me. I have a supply of 5-10 older Cincinnati brewery cases like this from Hudepohl, Burger, and others. Unfortunately, all the interior dividers have been removed. They have been used as file boxes for decades by the company I work for
I still have a couple cases of Old Milwaukee returnables here - the glass is a lot thicker and more durable. I think your best option is to do a soak in Oxyclean, although that would certainly remove your labels. You could just fill them most of the way with water, then dose each bottle with Oxyclean to loosen the crud. Then hit them with a bottle blaster and follow up with a bottle brush. If the case was closed, chances are that there’s not too much junk in there. However, I doubt the bottles were rinsed before storing, so they could have some extreme crusty mold going on. Good luck!
We will see what happens
Just put it up as beer art, bottles are easy to come by.
Or make oxyclean or b-brite solution and pour into bottles. Returnable bottles are pretty hard to break.
This is what I would do. You’re going to need to let them sit for some time and also probably to shake them. A good soak (interior) should get most of you’re gunk out of there.
Something old like that, I’d hit with good old bleach too (just NOT as the last thing before bottling). Maybe even consider alternating oxyclean and bleach 2x each. Nothing will survive that. 40 yrs of germ buildup needs a heavy hand, IMO, and bleach is a cheap way to both clean and kill everything. Just be really sure to rinse every bit of the bleach out when you are done and hit it with your sanitizer.
The bottles will be great, though. Those old bottles were very thick. All the old movies where the guy breaks the bottle on his head in a bar fight are complete BS. You’d get killed trying that and the bottle wouldn’t budge.
Thanks Roger, Joe, and Steve. They are just sitting for now, will get down to business on them in the next week or so