Can I just boil my bottles to sterize them? How far in advance can I do it? Is an emersion in Star San on bottling day good enough if the bottles have been washed?
Thanks in advance, this forum has been a wealth of knowledge aready.
I used to run mine through a sanitizing cycle in the dishwasher, but then I got a bottle tree with the pump at the top and now I just use that. I give each bottle three squirts.
If you have a dishwasher with a sanitizing cycle, I definitely recommend that over boiling all the bottles unless you have a kettle that can boil them all at once.
Boiling bottles sounds like a huge PITA with a real potential for getting burned. A 30-second dunk in StarSan (or use a squirter as above) is fast, safe, and effective.
If you try to boil the bottles you run a huge risk of breaking a bunch of them if the boil really gets going.
I just washed mine 6-10 at a time with a bottling brush & a sink full of OxyClean. Once they were all cleaned I gave each bottle 3 squirts of StarSan from a spray bottle. That only took me about 30-40 minutes last Saturday. Once I start actually bottling, I dump out as much excess StarSan as I can and bottle 6-10 at a time.
Bottles that have been washed and the soap rinsed out can be sanitized with StarSan. Add a little to each bottled and shake. Thirty seconds of wet contact is sufficient to sanitize clean bottles. Dump the sanitizer from the bottles into a bucket for sanitizing other equipment. This can be done just before bottling. Tip the bottles up on a sanitized surface to drain some of the foam out. Foam that remains in the bottle will have no deleterious effect on your beer if your solution is near the label instructions.
I have started to put my bottles in a bucket of star stan for 5 min then dump them out and then cover the top with foil that was dipped in star stan and store upside down in boxes for bottling. I try to do this the night before i want to bottle but have let them sit for 4 days with no problems. Cheers
Thanks, everyone for your suggestions. I’m relieved that I’ve already washed them with oxyclean, and I can use the star san with effectiveness on bottling day. Again, thank you for your quick answers!
I bottled my first batch yesterday and the first thing I did was to fill up a pan with starsan and immerse each bottle one at a time and spin them to get good contact then put them on a bottle tree to drain while I sanitized everything else and siphoned my beer to the bottling bucket. Hopefully this technique works and I don’t get contaminated bottles.
That is what the product is made for.
Sounds like a solid process you have.
Only thing I would add is to include filling 1 soda bottle with each batch of beer. Squeeze to O2 out and screw the cap on. The bottle will expand as CO2 is formed. No wondering what is happening in the glass bottles.
If you can plan ahead, soda bottles are great to take camping. Or larger bottles can be used for trips to friend’s houses for poker night/Sunday football. Even use them to smuggle beer where it’s not allowed, city parks? 
Lots of good advice on sanitizing bottles.
I used to wash my bottles in an oxyclean tub, rinse and soak them in Ian odophor tub. My preferred sanitizer. Never had a problem.
