bottles...

[hepcat]

A couple of questions re cleaning and sanitizing bottles:

Do you clean and sanitize them right before you bottle?

Note: I have aquired 13 used claret 750ml bottles which I have scraped all of the labels and glue off of and cleaned them once. Have not sanitized yet.

And does anybody have any clever way of storing clean, sanitized bottles until you are ready to use them without shelling out almost $30 for one of those christmas tree type racks?

Thanks.

 

[tatgeer]

I clean in advance and store in boxes, then sanitize just before bottling.

Well, I try to remember to clean in advance. Sometimes it all happens day-of.

 

[maykal]

Hi there,

Yes, you have to both clean and sanatize the bottles. I usually clean bottles right after drinking (talking more about homemade beers here). Pour the contents out, rince the bottle thoroughly, leave to drain. If you don't do that, the sediment it a pain in the butt to get out once it's hardened (you're into scrubbing with bottle brush territory).

Also, you can reuse the bottles again and again, so you only have to get the labels off the one time. Wine bottle labels are harder to get off than beer bottles. Of course, you don't have to remove the labels at all if you don't want. Or maybe just remove a few so you have a couple of nice looking bottles to give away as gifts. Alternatively, you can store the mead in beer bottles. I'm planning to bottle my first batch in 500ml beer bottles, or even some 33cl bottles - 70cl is possibly too much for one sitting (my other half hardly drinks) and also, as it's a pretty unusual drink here, lots of friends will want samples - better to give them 33cl samples first, until they know if they like it.

Once you've cleaned the bottles, store them away (if you can get your hands on some crates they help stacking). You have to sterilize them right before you fill them, however, otherwise there's the chance that nasties will get inside again. Even if you put tops on, you'll be sealing a load of air in their and you don't know what's in the air...

As for draining, I'd say splash out on the draining tree whenever you have the cash. I didn't have one, stood bottles upside down on the sideboard to drain instead, one clumsy moment, domino effect...need I say more?

The tree is well worth it. I suppose you could A-Team together your own one with some pieces of dowling.

 

[Midnight Sun]

I have a fried who uses his baby's bottle rack as a brew bottle dryer. That might be a cheaper alternative than a rack from your LHBS.

Otherwise, you might be able to gin something up with lumber and dowl rods like maykal suggests. Just be sure to use untreated lumber.

 

[veritas]

The cost of that drying tree is worth it IMHO. Breaks down for storage holds a lot of bottles is very easy to clean and sanitize it self. Very useful tool. I don't have the sanitizer injector for the top of the tree though just use a spray bottle with star san mixed up.

 

[akueck]

+1 on the bottle tree, they are super handy. If you do get the spray injector thing, do not use it with normal StarSan. It foams up like mad and you'll create a giant tower of bubbles (which looks cool but then falls over and goes everywhere). [Can you tell this has happened to me?] You can get the non-foaming kind or use Iodophor.

I try to clean bottles ahead of time. Usually I clean more bottles than I need for a current batch, and then I have some clean ones ready to go for next time. I usually put a little foil over the top to keep the dust out. Sanitizing I always do immediately before bottling.

 

[jkane]

I have friends who bottle. They say use the rack on a dish washer for drying. One even used the dishwasher to sanitize them. Not sure I agree that will get inside the bottles very well though!

 

[Loadnabox]

For my beer bottles:

I rinse them after use. If they're "new" with brand labels I will put them in a specific crate for later label removal.

Once I have enough bottle together, I'll run them through the dishwasher. Mind you I don't have a full size dishwasher but a countertop model so I can only get about 2 doz bottles into it.

Once out of the dishwasher I'll put them into a plastic bin in the garage.

On bottling day, I fill one side of my sink with 2.5 gallons of iodophor solution (diluted per instructions of course). The other side of the sink I use with a faucet attachment for bottle rinsing. I use the regular kitchen sprayer to give the outside a quick rinse down. I use the faucet attachment to give the inside a quick rinse down (remove any dust accumulation etc) then dunk immerse the entire bottle in sanitizer. While one bottle is soaking in sanitizer I repeat the rinse process with another.

Once out of the sanitizer bath I have a pair of standard kitchen dish rack that holds about 35 bottles at a time. I stack them in there to drip dry out. Once I have what I consider to be enough bottles ready I fill 'em up capping as I go.

This just happens to be the method I worked out for myself. I never got advice on the "right" way to do it, so who knows if my process has flaws. (I'm fairly inexperienced too at bottling, only done three batches so far)

For my wine bottles:

I try to scrape all the labels in a single day since they're such a complete PITA. I will generally give a cursory rinse when done (fill partly with water and drain), but will wash and sanitize the day of bottling since my dishwasher can't fit them and putting the rinse adapter on the sink is also a pita (and drives the SWMBO insane) it's better to just do it all once.

 

[hepcat]

Thank you all very much for your input! I have all of my used bottles cleaned up and labels removed and are storing them up side down until I need them in one of those plastic crates you can get for cheap at walmart. I put a piece of cardboard on the bottom of it then a layer of paper towels. The crates hold about 15 bottles.

 

[YogiBearMead726]

+1 on covering the openings of clean bottles with aluminum foil until they are needed. Having cats, I know that their hair gets everywhere, so I started doing this as soon as I started collecting and reusing bottles.

The foil is a good way to keep unwanted nasties out, is relatively cheap, and you can reuse it or recycle it. I've even seen commercial breweries use it because it's effective and low cost for keeping things sterile/dirt and dust free until you need to use them.

And like others have said, as long as you rinse and clean all bottles before storage, all you should need at bottling time is a quick rinse on the outside (to wash off any dust accumulated from storage...I personally don't like the idea of dirty bottles going into clean sanitizer) and then a dip in your preferred no-rinse sanitizer.

 

[PitBull]

+1 on the bottle tree, they are super handy. If you do get the spray injector thing, do not use it with normal StarSan. It foams up like mad and you'll create a giant tower of bubbles (which looks cool but then falls over and goes everywhere). [Can you tell this has happened to me?] You can get the non-foaming kind or use Iodophor.

I try to clean bottles ahead of time. Usually I clean more bottles than I need for a current batch, and then I have some clean ones ready to go for next time. I usually put a little foil over the top to keep the dust out. Sanitizing I always do immediately before bottling.

I'm going to have to get the spray attachment and give iodine base solution a try.

I typically clean bottles the night before with soap, water and bottle brush. Then I rinse and completely fill them with a peroxide based cleaner such as OneStep. Since peroxides require 15 minutes of contact time to sanitize, overnight is overkill, but convenient for my proposes. It also cleans out any red wine residue that might have escaped the soap, water and elbow grease. Since the bottles are filled to the top, there is no room for anything to get into the bottle. However, I cover them with plastic wrap as an extra measure.

The next morning I merely empty the bottles, put them on the tree to drain and then bottle.

 

[Lawpaw]

I've used the dishwasher to sanitize. It's the heat that sanitizes, so nothing needs to make it into the bottle. Just clean first.

 

[jkane]

Goo B Gone and a Scotch pad removes the gummy stuff left when scraping labels off.

 

[Robusto]

I use the dishwasher- I don't use detergent, just a half a cup of bleach or so and high heat dry. I figure between the bleach, the high temp water and the high heat drying that they are sanitized at least as well as I could do with a brush. Been doing that for over 20 batches and no problems yet.

 

[Loadnabox]

I've used the dishwasher to sanitize. It's the heat that sanitizes, so nothing needs to make it into the bottle. Just clean first.

It still concerns me

Dishwashers harbor deadly bacteria

Goo B Gone and a Scotch pad removes the gummy stuff left when scraping labels off.

I find an sos pad works really well and are dirt cheap. I can get a whole box of the generic ones for $1 in the states (at the dollar store)

The really hard part is getting the label to come off in the first place. I still haven't found a method that I like.

Clothes detergent didn't work very well
Boiling had almost no effect
dishwasher made a giant mess and didn't remove it very well
wallpaper remover was about as effective as a long soak in plain water

I need to try some oxy clean still, many people have recommended that.

 

[Altricious]

There are two factors in removing labels. The obvious one is the glue. Some glues are water soluble while others are not. No matter how much soap you use, glues that are not water soluble will be stubborn and will not dissolve. In those cases solvents like mineral spirits, lighter fluid, gasoline or even cooking oil can be helpful. There's a million other similar items that will work.

The second factor that can be very frustrating is the permeability of the label. Thick paper, coatings, or even heavy ink can make it difficult for your solvent to get to the glue.

So, my method when removing any label for any reason is as follows.

If it's truly plastic, peel it. Don't worry about the glue left behind, just get the label part off first. If it's permeable paper, soak it. If it's impermeable, score it and soak it. There's honestly no substitute for a good soak. It's like removing wallpaper.

Then, once the paper is off, address any glue residue. If it doesn't come off with soap and water, then try what's handy, probably your cooking oil if you're cleaning these in the kitchen. If that doesn't work for me, I move on to the WD-40 which is usually also handy. After that, I'm mad enough to drag out the kerosene or gasoline.

Usually though, those gummy glues don't even need a solvent to come off of the glass as long as they've been warmed by the water. I find I can usually just rub them off with a bare hand. (ok, that sounded dirty, sorry)

 

[TheAlchemist]

There's a lot of info on bottle washing on another thread, but I can't find it.

Most uncooperative labels will come off in hot bleach water.

 

[Jas53]

I use oxyclean overnight to clean both the labels off of beer and wine bottles. By the next morning most of the labels either have fallen off or can be easily removed with a razor blade. After drying - i store upside down in case.

 

[jayich]

One more way:
I rinse bottles only with water immediately after use. If bottles have dried- on sediments I will soak in soapy warm water and use a bottle brush for stubborn adherent crap. I then drain the bottles on a rack and then cap with pieces of aluminum foil. I then bake in a 340F oven for 1 hour. The bottles can then be used at any time in the future without further treatment. The oven works better than a dishwasher because it drives out any moisture that may be left in the bottles.

 

[speedreader]

About 10 minutes in the oven on 220. Take a razor blade to the corner of the label and peel. Gets about 85-90% of the labels off.

Oddly enough, the ones it doesn't do well with the oven are the cheap paper labels with water soluble adhesives. Those go in a bucket of hot water.