Bottle drying

I'm a new homebrewer so I don't know if this is a good practice or not, but I line a box with a clean towel and place my sanitized bottles in there upside down to drip dry until I'm ready to fill them. I wipe down the outsides first so there isn't a lot of excess water.

 

I have the bottling tree and the bottle washer that attaches to the top. I clean the bottles with an oxy soak and then hang on the tree to dry. I make sure the limbs of the tree are clean too. By the time I fill up the tree, the first ones I put on are ready to go. I then use the bottle washer attachment with sanitizer to, well, sanitize, then go right to my bottling wand. I keep my bottle caps in the well of the bottle washer attachment.

 

I use a bottle tree but have heard a lot of people use their dishwashers to dry the bottles. Some even use it to sanitize.

 

Look for a vinyl coated wire basket that goes on the counter next to the sink to dry dishes in. the dish washer drawers, top and bottom, can support upside down bottles. I used one with just prongs pointing up to separate plates or stand up glasses. You can put bottles upside down on the prongs and fill in the gaps with other bottles. Others prob have better ways.

You can also just fling them out. that little bit of starsan or the like wont hurt anything. itdoesnt have to be dry before filling.

 

i use the rack on my counter that dries my dishes with a piece of sanitized aluminum foil on the bottom where the bottle top would be touching...

 

I usually just pull the bottle out of the bucket of sanitizer, give it a shake, then fill. I don't think there is a need to have the bottle completely dry before fill.

When I first started brewing, I used the oven method shown her Baking Bottles. Although I felt this method weakended the bottles for future batches.

 

I clean/sanitize in a couple of big buckets, but I let the bottles drip in the dishwasher until bottling time (usually about a half-hour or so). Haven't had any issues yet...

 

Well... I thought the whole point of having a bottle tree was so that you have a way to keep bottles clean and sanitary while waiting to be filled. So what I do is wash and sanitize the bottles, and hang them on a bottle tree to dry. Maybe I should add that I sanitize the 'tree' part of the bottle tree, either by soaking in a bucket of sanitizer or by spraying it down. Leave the bottles there till you're ready to go. You don't necessarily have to wait till they're completely dry, but I usually do.

 

Night before I bottle, I run the dishwasher and empty it in the morning. After an overnight Oxy soak for the bottles, I rinse them in the sink, dunk in StarSan and empty, then place them into the dishwasher upside down. I spray the dishwasher rack with StarSan just before as well. While I load the dishwasher the beer is racking to my bottling bucket. Once I am done I start at the front right corner of the dishwasher (closest to the bottling bucket and where I started loading) and work my way towards the back left corner, the exact order I loaded them in. Fill 6, cap, label, put in box, move on. Works great.

 

After I sanitize mine I just flip them over and place them in the six packs that are in the case so they drain out. No problems so far.

 

I like the idea of spraying StarSan on the rack. Other than that it sounds like our processes are pretty similar...

 

I could never justify paying $50 for a bottle tree. I pour my beer, rinse it out twice while swirrling, and stand it upside down in an empty 6-pack carton to dry. I double-check my bottles against a light, but they generally just need a star san soak via funnel and they're good to go for bottling. I pour from one bottle to the next so I don't need gallons of star san. I pour again from the bottle to get the last drops out right before the wand goes in.

 

I put mine in a towel-lined bicycle basket that's in the backyard. I like to make do with what I have.