sanitizing bottles / bottling day

What kind of sanitizer are you using? If you are using StarSan or Iodophor, there is no need to rinse in the sink - in fact it is a bad idea, since it can introduce microbes. If you are using a sanitizer that must be rinsed, such as bleach, I would recommend switching to StarSan.

As for saving time, what some people do is get the bottles clean (not sanitized), and then either put them in the oven for a while at a sterilizing temperature (say 250°F or 300°F), or put them in the dishwasher on the "sanitize" cycle. To emphasize: the bottles should already be clean and rinsed out (no PBW residue) when they go in the oven or dishwasher. Obviously if you use the oven you must turn the oven off and let the bottles cool down before bottling. I have used this method with quite a bit of success. I find that it is getting the bottles clean that is tedious and labor-intensive. Once they are clean, there are a lot of good options.

 

There is no need to sanitize the outside of your bottles (i.e. dunking in a bucket). You can mix up as little as 1/2 gallon of sanitizer and pour ~4 oz in the bottle, then pour that into the next bottle (via funnel). All you need is for the solution to wet the inside surface . . . filling the bottle completely is a little overkill, dunking is a big overkill. After about 5 bottles I dump and start with a fresh 4 oz pour.

Not sure I understand your "rinse each one in the sink". After the inside is sanitized let it drain on a tree or better yet one of these:


This is a total of three steps: Pour/re-pour/stack . . . with only 1/2 gallon of juice.

As for cleanliness, a thorough rinse (tap water) after pouring a brew is usually enough.

 

The fastrack is awesome for drying after sanitizing.

 

No need to let soak for 20 min. 2 or 3 is plenty. And don't rinse!

 

Well having just bottled a brew my self I will say that bottling day is the roughest. I fill my bottling bucket to give it an extra cleaning with PBW, then fill my bottles about half way with the solution and give them a shake. Dump them, and rinse them out twice with hot water, then empty the rest of the bucket and rinse. Then I go to where I will bottle, I have a bottle tree, and using a spray bottle, give each bottle a misting and put them on the tree. Right after this, I start racking to my bottling bucket (which was sprayed first).

I can usually do bottling day "prep", bottling, and clean up in about 2 hours. It is still really tiring though to me, and I am usually exhausted after (like now), and even with the spray bottle, I usually on get 2 brews from brew day to bottling out of one bottle, so still feel I am going through a lot of starsan, so am kind of leaning on going back to bleach (yes more time rinsing, but feel it was cheaper for me).

And yes that last bit is a "holy run on sentence Batman" moment....

 

Bub, I pretty much use your 'dunking' procedure, but as mentioned above by @KeyWestGator, only 3 minutes is all I use for dunking time. I get 10-12 twelve ounce bottles into a bucket by sinking them like you do, and getting that many into the bucket takes about 3 minutes. So by the time that I get all 12 of them sunk, it's time to start taking the first ones out to place on my drain board. Four of these dunking cycles gets me almost enough to bottle 5 gallons.

 

I do not keg.
I use flip top bottles like grolsh.
Here is my method.
After drinking then rinsing out a bottle with a bottle washer, I add a diluted amount of bleach to each bottle, shake then let sit for a week or so, usually wash 2 or more milk crates worth at a time.
Then rinse bottles with the Bottle washer using hot water, drain then add about a half inch of starsan solution and cap.
When bottleing day comes, l dump the starsan into the already cleaned and dryed bottling bucket using it to sanitize the bucket and racking cane.
This has worked well for me. One does need to have more bottles than beer to keep the flow going or, not brew/drink much.

 

People come to this forum with lots of different degrees of experience, so I apologize if what I'm about to say is stuff you already know.

Cleaning refers to the removal of all unwanted material from your equipment. It is a physical/chemical process that should leave a smooth surface, free of any organic material or other accumulation. Most chemical cleansers, such as B-Brite, PBW, and OxyClean, must be rinsed thoroughly after use.

Sanitizing refers to the elimination of practically all microbial life on the equipment. Sanitization can be accomplished either chemically or by heat. For a chemical sanitizer to work, the surface to be sanitized must already be clean. Otherwise the sanitizer might not penetrate whatever material is on the surface, and so microbes might find shelter from the chemical attack. Note that while all your equipment must be cleaned, only "cold side" equipment has to be sanitized, because any microbial infection that occurs pre-boil will be eliminated by the boil. There are several brands of sanitizers that are "no rinse," meaning that the residue will not negatively affect your beer. You can simply use these products and then use the equipment without any further rinsing (in fact, it's better not to rinse). This is a very nice feature because rinsing the bottles can re-introduce microbes. Bleach is an effective sanitizer, but it must be rinsed, which is why I would recommend StarSan instead.

B-Brite is a cleanser, it is suitable for cleaning but not for sanitizing. It's not a mistake to use it on your bottles - they do have to be cleaned (although many people, not including me, find that if you rinse your bottles thoroughly immediately after pouring the beer, no further cleaning is necessary). But B-Brite is not sufficient, by itself, to sanitize the bottles. For that, there are a variety of options. Once your bottles are clean, you can use (A) StarSan, as others have recommended, or another no-rinse sanitizer, or (B) heat, either using the oven or the "sanitize" cycle on your dishwasher.

I don't know what your LHBS sold you, but it sounds like a cleanser, not a sanitizer. I would not use it for sanitization, and I would rinse it thoroughly after using it.

 

Yeah, I think that's basically what @PortLargo was recommending above. StarSan costs a lot per container but I find it lasts a really long time. That said, probably the dishwasher's "sanitize" cycle is the most economical option.

 

Remember that StarSan can also be re-used several times. Thus, as someone has suggested, pour a little in one bottle, shake it around so that the entire inner surface has been wetted, then pour into the next bottle and repeat 5 or 6 times. Depending on how much solution you initially made, you will likely still have a lot left over to use for the next bottling session.

 

Below is from the Five Star website concerning Star San:

“GENERAL USE DIRECTIONS

All surfaces should be cleaned and rinsed before sanitizing with STAR SAN.

Directions: A dilution of 1 ounce to 5 gallons of water, STAR SAN will provide 300 ppm of dodecylbenzenesulfonic acid. After 1 to 2 minutes contact time, drain sanitizing solution equipment thoroughly. Do not rinse. If using Star San in CIP, proper water balance must be maintained or your pump may cavitate. If used at a rate of more than 300 ppm, a potable rinse is required”

I just wanted to emphasize that the manufacturer states you need a minimum of 1 minute of contact time. My arithmetic states that if you were to transfer the contents of Star San from one bottle to another and assuming 48 bottles this translate to a minimum of 48 minutes to sanitize two cases of 12 ounce bottles. I suppose this would be about 26+ minutes for the case of 22 ounce bottles.

Cheers!

 

Since you have a dishwasher, I would just use that to sanitize the already clean bottles. When I pour a bottle, I rinse a couple times then store upside down until the next bottling day. The night before bottling, I load up the dishwasher with the clean bottles. Run the sanitize cycle WITHOUT SOAP and then fill the bottles on the door of the dishwasher, any overflow ends up in the dishwasher when done.

 

Made a small bottle washer. It doesn't always get the hard stuff off the bottom so i also made a pool stick scrubber by gluing scotch brite to pipe.I can do a lot of bottles quick.

 

Theoretically, it would appear that you would have to leave the Starsan in each bottle for a minimum of 1 minute. BUT - if you pour the Starsan in the bottle, swish it around and then dump it immediately into another bottle, the insides will still be wet and maintain contact for WELL over 1 minute. Thus it appears that the entire operation can be greatly shortened.

 

I ensure the tough stuff is removed long before bottling (PBW/BBrite hot water), on the day of the show, I use the bottling tools, bucket, bottle filler to Star San all the bottles needed, Suspend upside down on a rack and to Jacks point make sure there is 1-2 minutes of retained sanitizer in the bottle, empty back in the bottling bucket swirl to sanitize the bucket, and empty into the available carboy for next use, transfer the beer to be bottled. I believe using all the parts needed for the bottling keeps the "system" clean.
Just finished bottling Maibock using these steps for years, also use 22 oz bottles.
75 minutes start to finish.
Cheers