Sanitation Refresher

Your bottles do need to be cleaned, rinsed (to remove cleanser), and then sanitized proper to bottling. Sounds like the infection is in that part of the system from what you said. I usually remember to rinse out my bottles after pouring them, but if not I use a bottling brush for a once over before sanitation. They should definitely look clean like no gunk or anything in them.

I would make sure all of your equipment is clean, not scratched, etc. Especially stuff like tubing and bottle fillers which are easy to overlook.

 

I only accept bottles for storage that have been immediately rinsed and shaken firmly multiple times with hot water, then drained and left to dry upside-down, then after completely dry, have the top covered with a square of tinfoil. Bottles are inspected by holding up to light and looking down the stem (both before the tinfoil is added, to ensure both complete dryness and no residual cling-ons, AND before each bottle is filled with sanitizer on bottling day).

If a bottle has anything at all that would require a bottling brush to remove it, that bottle is instantly rejected and sent to recycle. I had a few individual bottles get infected around batches 14-15 or so, and I'm sure the reason was taking bottles from friends that weren't clean enough, and not making sure my own handling methods were clean enough either. I don't use any cleanser as I don't want residual cleaner in my beer, and don't want to have to go through another procedure when it comes to bottling if I can avoid it.

During bottling, I fill up a big pot with starsan solution and immerse each bottle until it sinks, then leave it there for a while before adding to the bottling tree to drain. Make sure the bottling tree is clean and you dump plenty of sanitizer over it before putting bottles on it, and keep dumping a little sanitizer over it every few minutes. Make plenty of solution too, don't try to skimp and save a few cents worth of starsan. Generally for a five gallon batch I mix up a boil kettle's worth of starsan, and it's plenty. Thus one big bottle of starsan lasts a long time (well over a year), and the price of each bottling day's worth of starsan is actually quite low. I do not re-use starsan or attempt to save it, I just mix new each time I need it.

Now if your gear isn't clean, or your buckets are all scratched up, or you're not sanitizing them properly before bottling, then there's nothing a clean bottle can do for you.

Also, I replace the hose for my auto-siphon every so often, and even have replaced the auto-siphon itself twice since I started brewing. If you have any gear that's not obviously perfectly clean, and this equipment touches cooled wort / young beer, either clean it right or replace it.

 

I have enough bottles that I can reject any that have gunk in them. When I pour a beer, I rinse the bottle a couple of times to get out any sediment and then I store upside down to minimize the crap that can get in. When it is time to bottle, I load up the dishwasher with bottles. As I pull a bottle out of the dishwasher, I inspect to make sure that it is clean, then fill. Never had an infection with this procedure.

It is best to remember that you can't sanitize dirt, you have to start with clean bottles before you sanitize. FWIW, I don't associate light-struck/skunky with infection, but I am no expert and could be wrong. Is is possible that light got to the better bottle/secondary? It is also worth ditching the secondary altogether, that is just another place to potentially pick up an infection.

 

One tip is to wash out your bottles as soon as possible after you've poured the beer from them.Just before use, clean them thoroughly using suds and a brush, rinse carefully first with water then with metabisulphite solution and pour off.This will leave a trace of metabisulphite which is an excellent killer of spoilage organisms as well as an anti oxidant.

 

Yes, you should clean and sanitize your bottles. But "smelled like old skunky lager/pilsner that had been lightstruck in green glass" doesn't sound like an infection to me. It sounds like a lightstruck beer. (If your beer wasn't lightstruck, I don't know what else that could be). The sediment on the side of the bottles could also be a sign of bad/no cleaning (which does not necessarily mean infection). Did the beer taste sour, or buttery/rancid, or sulfury?

Also, you can use metabisulphite if you want. But we have easier, more effective sanitizers in the 21st century. Starsan is my recommendation.

 

Like everyone above says, sanitizing is not a substitute for cleaning first. With the way things sound for you right now, I would clean and sanitize all of your cold-side brewery equipment and supplies before you open another fermenter.

 

I wasn't putting forward metabisulphite as a sanitiser but as a very useful material in its own right. It's flavourless, effective against most spoilage organisms but doesn't affect yeast so can be used for bottle conditioning. And it's good at mopping up oxygen.

 

90% of brewing is cleaning. You can't sanitize dirt.

 

I agree with this. I use Oxy-Clean to soak, then rinse (inside and out), then sanitize with StarSan. I had problems with a few batches back when I was just rinsing the bottles out and sanitizing without the cleansing step. When I pull a bottle out of that Oxy-Clean soak and rinse it off, it looks clean! You will notice a big difference.

 

You can't sanitize what isn't clean.
At the risk of repeating myself...you can't sanitize what isn't clean.

 

Sounds like you pretty much got everything covered in terms of sanitation. So please forgive me for asking, but did you sanitize your yeast packs and scissors (or whatever you used to cut them open)?

 

OP, be aware that this is one school of thought and by no means is it universally held to be true.