Ugh, I've got a whole stupid system... I went to the wine store and they gave me a bunch of wine cases (boxes with the divider inserts) and dirty bottles go in right-side up, clean ones upside-down, that way I can tell the difference and I know that no spiders will have crawled into the clean ones and died (or not, as the case was with one of my carboys once, boy were both of us surprised) and I can just sanitize and use them without washing again.
I have a bucket that fits seven wine bottles, so I put a drip of detergent in each bottle and a squirt in the bucket, fill each bottle AND the bucket with hot water and soak for at least 15 min, longer if the labels are less permeable. I find the plastic ones release better for being warmed anyway... So while they're soaking, I take the bottle brush to each bottle and then when the labels have soaked, I use a knife or spoon edge to scrape off the labels that want to play nice, using a plastic scrubbie for little bits of leftover glue, and the really stubborn ones get stainless steel scrubbie to get the paper off. Then I empty each scrubbed bottle's water into the next bottle going into the pail (it stays warm for hours, I can cycle dozens of bottles through before needing to change the water) and rinse it using my Bottle Blaster (attaches to the laundry tub faucet and blasts water up into the bottle), then it goes on the drying tree to drain, anything with a gummy label that refuses to come off goes into a box and eventually I take the Goo Gone to it but I don't like using that stuff around my wines so I tend to do it all at once so I only have to stink up the place and scrub it off my hands once.
When I'm ready to bottle, I use potassium metabisulphate in one of those sanitizer things (although mine is a different make from my bottle tree and doesn't fit on top of it, boo).
And for the record, most dishwashers don't get hot enough to sterilize, and with the amount of crap I occasionally find in the bottom of my drinking glasses (usually at the bottom of my glass of milk, ugh) when the dishwasher wasn't loaded quite right, I wouldn't trust that they're even clean.
Oh, and my favourite way of dealing with bottles I've just drank the contents of, and what I've recommended to the people who save bottles for me? Don't rinse, just shove the cork halfway back in. I've never had one go fuzzy, presumably there's enough alcohol to keep the buggies at bay, and everything inside stays moist, nothing dries on so when I do get around to washing it, it's no big deal...
I have a bucket that fits seven wine bottles, so I put a drip of detergent in each bottle and a squirt in the bucket, fill each bottle AND the bucket with hot water and soak for at least 15 min, longer if the labels are less permeable. I find the plastic ones release better for being warmed anyway... So while they're soaking, I take the bottle brush to each bottle and then when the labels have soaked, I use a knife or spoon edge to scrape off the labels that want to play nice, using a plastic scrubbie for little bits of leftover glue, and the really stubborn ones get stainless steel scrubbie to get the paper off. Then I empty each scrubbed bottle's water into the next bottle going into the pail (it stays warm for hours, I can cycle dozens of bottles through before needing to change the water) and rinse it using my Bottle Blaster (attaches to the laundry tub faucet and blasts water up into the bottle), then it goes on the drying tree to drain, anything with a gummy label that refuses to come off goes into a box and eventually I take the Goo Gone to it but I don't like using that stuff around my wines so I tend to do it all at once so I only have to stink up the place and scrub it off my hands once.
When I'm ready to bottle, I use potassium metabisulphate in one of those sanitizer things (although mine is a different make from my bottle tree and doesn't fit on top of it, boo).
And for the record, most dishwashers don't get hot enough to sterilize, and with the amount of crap I occasionally find in the bottom of my drinking glasses (usually at the bottom of my glass of milk, ugh) when the dishwasher wasn't loaded quite right, I wouldn't trust that they're even clean.
Oh, and my favourite way of dealing with bottles I've just drank the contents of, and what I've recommended to the people who save bottles for me? Don't rinse, just shove the cork halfway back in. I've never had one go fuzzy, presumably there's enough alcohol to keep the buggies at bay, and everything inside stays moist, nothing dries on so when I do get around to washing it, it's no big deal...
I wear rubberized gloves when I go dumpster diving, because sometimes there are broken bottles and/or glasses.
