Soap in the dishwasher

Just curious. For those who use the dishwasher for bottle washing, do you use detergent or not. I typically do not. I just put it on the sanitize cycle with steam but this time I am adding detergent. I got bottles back from people who I gave beer to and some people are not aware of the etiquette of making sure you return clean bottles. I just wonder if I get enough flow inside the bottles to get a good wash and particularly a good rinse. I always double rinse with starsan before filling so I think I will get any residue out anyway, but I guess I am being overly paranoid.

Dish washer probably will not get crud out of the bottles, just because of the bottles shape. Best way to remove crud is a PBW or Oxyclean soak and then a bottle brush. Putting the bottle brush on a battery powered drill removes all the labor.

Double rinsing soapy bottles in your Starsan adds soap to the Starsan and wastes it. The Starsan solution will be contaminated and cannot be saved. Just do a good job of rinsing right after the cleaning.

got it

In addition, if the dishwasher doesn’t get the crud the dry cycle will help set that crud even more. Long soak in pbw, hit it with a rush, double rinse, then your good to go on your sanitation.

I generally(but not always) add 1 scoop of oxyclean for the 1st cycle. However, I don’t expect it to do anything other than clean the outside. One time I did have a bottle with a little crud in the bottom go through a full cycle. Noticed it before using it and tossed it. It was baked on solid. Moral- make sure they are clean before sanitizing, no matter what method you use.

Ah, yes the etiquette thing. A sweet young thing that runs with my wife went to all the trouble to return the six bottles that had contained my house hefe, and neglected to rinse them. They had these amazing thick plaques of mold that I actually cleaned with copious amounts of oxy, a brush, and then starsan. I probably would have just tossed them had I known the time investment. Best to mention rinsing to anyone getting bottled home brew.