What are people’s preferred method for sanitizing all the bottles on bottling day?
Do you just dunk each one individually for 30 seconds and then let completely dry before siphoning the beer in? Or can you do it before they are totally dry?
Just seems like a lot of work / sanitizing so I’m looking for any creative short cuts people use.
Use a no rinse sanitizer like star san and don’t worry about fully drying.
Personally I have a bottle tree with a sprayer attachment on top, and I just give a few squirts of star san to each bottle and put it right back on the rack. Probably the most convenient way of doing things, assuming you have a place to put the tree.
Also, give your homebrew bottles a thorough rinsing right after pouring and any additional scrubbing washing is rarely needed. That way on bottling day you’re truly only sanitizing and not worrying about cleaning.
Bottle tree with vinator on top and a little starsan solution. Quick and easy.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/revi ... egory/205/I use a 19 gallon tub and put two cases of clean bottles in at a time. Pull them out and hang on bottle tree before filling.
I line up all the bottles that will be needed in my brewing sink. Add a little StarSan solution from a gallon jug with a small funnel. Shake them up. Gather the rest of the bottling gear in a bucket for sanitising. Dump the sanitiser from each bottle into the bucket and place the bottles in a rack to drain. Total time from lining up the bottles to bottling, about 20 minutes.
Star san in a vinator…few squirts, then put upside down on sanitized washing machine rack, or just leave them upright and give an extra tip to drain as much as possible.
Star stan in a 5 gal pal then dump out and put on a bottle tree. easy as pie, I can delable, clean, and sanitize 48 bottles in 30 min.
I have on occasion used a cooler full of sanitizer to soak the bottles, but that is not my preferred method.
The night before I bottle, I put my CLEAN bottles into my dishwasher and run it on the Sanitize cycle overnight. When I get up the next morning, they are ready for me. I open the door, put the bottling bucket on the counter above it, and fill 6 bottles at a time right on the open door. I then move the bottles to the counter to cap.
Very easy to do, any spills stay in the dishwasher, and any bottles that don’t get used, I cover with little squares of aluminum foil and put away for my next bottling day. It does mean that I’m down by the floor for filling, but I can live with that.
The vinator option looks pretty nice too!
Dishwasher set to sanitize.
I put them in the oven the night before and bake at 285F for 3 hours. They are cooled and sterilized by the morning.
Me too with the diswasher cycle. I used to add a tablespoon of B-Brite, but don’t anymore.
I do make sure that my bottles are clean first, which is not a problem with the ones I drink. If I get bottles from friends I soak them in Oxyclean to get labels off and use a bottle brush. Them make sure I rinse well, and store upside down.
[quote=“tallcoldone”]I have on occasion used a cooler full of sanitizer to soak the bottles, but that is not my preferred method.
The night before I bottle, I put my CLEAN bottles into my dishwasher and run it on the Sanitize cycle overnight. When I get up the next morning, they are ready for me. I open the door, put the bottling bucket on the counter above it, and fill 6 bottles at a time right on the open door. I then move the bottles to the counter to cap.
Very easy to do, any spills stay in the dishwasher, and any bottles that don’t get used, I cover with little squares of aluminum foil and put away for my next bottling day. It does mean that I’m down by the floor for filling, but I can live with that.
The vinator option looks pretty nice too![/quote]
Wow im having a “could a had a v8” moment. :shock: I have been bottling on the floor right in frount of my dishwasher and it always drips on the floor, from now on I will open the door for easy clean up. The learning never stops. Thanks a million and cheers
[quote=“dobe12”]Bottle tree with vinator on top and a little starsan solution. Quick and easy.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/revi ... egory/205/[/quote]This is my procedure as well, except the vinator is not on the tree. I setup an assembly line on my bar: bottles in carriers > vinator > tree. The bottling process is the reverse (substitute bottling bucket for vinator).
I fill a pail with sanitizer, put 6 bottles in. I pull one out, tip it to drain. while i’m filling one with my right hand I pull the next one out and hold it upside down to drip. once the 6 are full I cap then stir the bucket to make sure the sugar stays mixed.
Thanks, great ideas and replies.
On another note, does anyone else have trouble with their bottling bucket leaking where the spigot is? This happened to me and it made me speed things up, which caused a disaster of beer going everywhere.
[quote=“5th Ave Brew”]Thanks, great ideas and replies.
On another note, does anyone else have trouble with their bottling bucket leaking where the spigot is? This happened to me and it made me speed things up, which caused a disaster of beer going everywhere.[/quote]
I really hate my bottling setup… the spigot itself will dribble a tiny bit, the hose going to the spring loaded bottle filler drips… not huge leaks, but enough to get my hands sticky. I’ve gotten in the habit of setting up twenty five bottles on the door of my dishwasher, filling them very quickly, moving them to the counter, setting up twenty five more bottles on the dishwasher, finish as quickly as I can, then cap everything as a batch. I suppose I should figure that out…
A vaguely related funny story… the essential starter kit from NB came with two different sizes of hose. I realized on batch 4 that I was using the wrong hose with my autosiphon… I always wondered why I had such a hard time racking beer.
Hi 5th,
THis same thing happened to me with a batch I bottled this past weekend. The rubber gasket on the outside of the pail was crimped and not sealing well. I managed but still wound up probably wasting a bottle’s worth(fortunately not more than that).
When I took it apart afterwards, the threaded part broke completely away from the spigot. Had a spare luckily.
[quote=“uberculture”][quote=“5th Ave Brew”]Thanks, great ideas and replies.
On another note, does anyone else have trouble with their bottling bucket leaking where the spigot is? This happened to me and it made me speed things up, which caused a disaster of beer going everywhere.[/quote]
A vaguely related funny story… the essential starter kit from NB came with two different sizes of hose. I realized on batch 4 that I was using the wrong hose with my autosiphon… I always wondered why I had such a hard time racking beer.[/quote]
Ha, the only bottling day I have done was a total wreck. My first time siphoning I got flustered and the hose made its way out of the bottling bucket and I literally had beer flying around my kitchen from the hose. Two different times I had to call my girlfriend over from the living room to help me get things under control. I never thought what seemed like a simple procedure would make me feel so incompetent. I’m hoping the next one goes better.
[quote=“5th Ave Brew”]Thanks, great ideas and replies.
On another note, does anyone else have trouble with their bottling bucket leaking where the spigot is? This happened to me and it made me speed things up, which caused a disaster of beer going everywhere.[/quote]
I did. Now I use a soft washer inside and outside.
+1 to using the dishwasher on the Sanitize setting. Make sure the bottles are clean first, and make sure you don’t use detergent. I usually run a rinse cycle on the empty dishwasher first just to make sure any soap residue gets washed off.
When you screw the spigot on, only tighten it until everything is just snug. The soft washers hold a seal just fine at that point. If you cinch it way down you may end up crimping one of the washers a bit and it will lead to a leaky seal.
One other tip - I bought a spare spigot & washers for my bottling bucket. After I bottle a batch I swap in the clean spigot to hold the seal and let the used spigot soak in PBW in the bucket.
