Is this oxidation or just poor cleaning?

Yeah, I should have provided the detail that I sanitize my bottles in a weak bleach solution. I personally do not notice any "film" in the bottle but if it was there that bleach solution would take care of it.

I suppose that for other sanitizers a more thorough cleaning method is needed?

Cheers!

 

That would explain it.

 

I figured out a long time ago that keeping 'used' bottles around indefinitely on the off chance that I'd decide to bottle some beer was a waste of space, time, and energy.

Invariably, they'd end up stored in my basement - usually upside down in an old beer case, but also piled in bags or buckets or whatever else happened to catch them. Often, they'd still have labels on them that would eventually have to be removed, the glue and residue soaked/scrubbed off, then rinsed and sanitized, etc. And, even if I was proactive and did all of that stuff up front - after enough time in the basement or the garage, they'd be dusty, or have spiderwebs all over. Or both. And I'd feel like I had to clean them *again* before I could use them. Madness!

The takeaway for me was: I keg all of my beer. The only time I ever needed those stashed away bottles was for gift-giving or homebrew competition entries, both of which I'd fill from kegs using a beer gun - and neither of which I wanted to leave to chance w/ a dusty bottle from the basement. I decided that my time (and energy and cleanser and hot water) is worth more than the cost of a case of new empty bottles. So I buy them at my LHS, take em home, dunk them in star san & drain. Fill, cap, done.

No more piles of empties 'just in case'.

 

I do the same water rinse (double rinse and shaking) after drinking and emptying a bottle, but I also always wash my bottles with a bottle brush and soap in prep for bottling followed by a hot water rinse the morning before bottling time within minutes of completing that task. However, even after the initial water rinse after drinking and the brush scrubbing followed by a soaking in a bucket with sanitizer, I still see a few 'specimens' of beer gunk floating in the soaking bucket after I'm done sanitizing. I can only asume that any gunk that made it this far (or may still be in the bottle) is sanitized and fully dead by now. However, this points out how difficult it is to be 1,000% sure that the bottles are clean.

 

Then what am I supposed to do with my bottle tree? No suggestions, please

 

Bleach is only a surface sanitizer, so, if there is gunk and the bleach doesn't get underneath it, you might have a spot for contamination. The alcohol in the beer will also kill some stuff. But for low alcohol beers, strict attention to clean and sanitized is a requirement.

Op, if you want to use your dishwasher, (which i get, because bottling out of it makes clean up easier), soak in a bleach solution, then rinse in the dish washer. There's no reason to waste expensive no-rinse star san, when bleach is cheap and your methods involves a rinse anyway

 

Star San is not a cleaner. And your dishwasher is not an effective bottle cleaner. If the bottles are dirty, they need to be cleaned with something like PBW or Oxyclean. Then use Star San on bottling day to sanitize your already clean bottles.

 

That's better. But there's no (antibacterial) reason for #2 if using Star San on bottling day. Rinsing the cleaner with plain water is fine. The purpose for rinsing after cleaning is to get all the residue off, and the dishwasher won't necessarily do that.

If spraying Star San, make sure it contacts the entire surface. A dunk in Star San solution would be surer bet.

 

Give. Up. The. Dishwasher!

You don't need it. At all.

But you do need a decent pair of rubber gloves if you're going to be dunking bottles in PBW. Your hands will thank you. Star San, not as much - but once you have them you might as well wear them!

 

Yeah, here's how I suggest you think about it. You must do the following in order:

1. Get the inside of the bottles clean. PBW + bottle brush is good for this.

2. Get the PBW off the bottles. Failing to do this is what might have caused your original problems. A simple rinse in water should do the trick, but I would do two rinses to be sure. A dishwasher is not ideal for this application, for reasons stated above.

3. Sanitize the bottles. You can do this with StarSan or with a sanitize cycle in your dishwasher. An advantage of StarSan is that if any PBW survived step 2, it should get eliminated in this step. A good dunk in StarSan is an excellent precaution to take. StarSan is a no-rinse sanitizer, so once you've applied it, there is nothing further that you should do. It does not need to dry before bottling, although you may prefer to turn the bottles upside down and let them dry so that they are less slippery when you're bottling.

So the issue I have with your proposal is not just that the dishwasher step is unnecessary, as @DunkelFester observed, but that I'm not sure you're even getting rid of all the PBW.

 

I've been using the same 16.9 oz Schlenkerla bottles for several years now and have had no problems. All these bottles initially go through the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes (after the original beer has been consumed), are stored top down until needed, are then filled with bleach water the day of bottling, allowed to sit for 30 minutes before draining, rinsed with hot water, and then run through the dishwasher without detergent for a final sterilization/rinse before bottling. I've never had inconsistency between bottles, just badly brewed beers . I've never used the commercial sterilization solutions so I can't comment on their usage.

 

I go to great (probably unnecessary) lengths to rinse out every last bit of PBW, so I have no personal experience with this. But here is an old (and somewhat interminable) thread on a competing website discussing possible oxidation from OxyClean (which is similar to PBW).

 

I have either been very lucky or it seems to me that many are overdoing it on cleaning with a cleanser every time.

Assuming the bottle is reused and has already had the label removed, immediately after pouring a homebrew beer I do a vigorous shake with hot water to remove the sediment and a second to rinse. After I have a dishwashers worth of bottles I then run a cycle through the dishwasher with no detergent and allow to air dry.

Lately for sanitization I have been using my oven . So far it seems to be working well, no infections, and is a lot easier to me than using a liquid sanitizer. I can fit 114 beer bottles in my oven, and just run the oven the night before my brew day.

I'm curious if anyone has any bad experiences with this method? I've done it 5 times so far with no apparent drawbacks.

 

@scottakelly, I usually use the oven method. I have always had a good experience with it. I sometimes put a piece of foil over the top of each bottle before I bake them so that if I don't use them all, the leftover ones will still be good to go on my next bottling day. Now that I think about it, I probably only need to put foil on like 10% of them, since I always use at least 90% of the bottles I expect to use. Hmmm.

That said, I wish cleaning were as easy for me as it is for you. For whatever reason, I can almost always detect some organic material on the inside of my bottles when I'm done (and this is true even if I give them a good rinse in hot water, with vigorous shaking, immediately after pouring the beer). I have no idea why my experience is different from yours, and I can only say I envy you. As I mentioned to @JackHorzempa above in the thread, I usually either see some yeast (or something) clinging to the bottom/side of the bottle, or a ring on the inside of the neck of the bottle. Rinsing with hot water does not remove these deposits. However, they tend to dissolve easily in PBW.

[edited for clarity]

 

Like all cleaning, promptness is probably the biggest factor. I've never used PBW or even soap on bottles...if they don't look pristine, they get tossed. Life's too short to fuck with dirty bottles (easy for me to say now as almost everything gets kegged)