Clean bottles - do I really need to sterilise?

[Cider Rich]

Hi all
After drinking, I thoroughly clean my bottles with boiling water, dry them and set aside ready for the next bottling.

My question is: do I really need to sterilise these bottles just before the next bottling? They've been sat in a box for a couple of weeks, what are the odds of nasties getting in there that can actually ruin the brew that's next going in?

Last time I filled, swirled and rinsed the bottles out with boiling water before filling with brew (cider), this seemed to work ok. None of the bottles tasted spoilt.

I'm wondering if omitting this step and just filling straight up with brew would be ok?

Whats peoples experiences with this?
Rich

[GARYSMIFF]

You might need this

[Horden Hillbilly]

My question is: do I really need to sterilise these bottles just before the next bottling?

In a word: Yes!

[Cider Rich]

If you are cleaning them thoroughly and allowing them to air, as you are making cider you may get away with it. It's low ph and alcoholic nature doesn't make a happy playground for bacteria and considering the production of real cider, squeezing apples through old sacking and straw in a musty old barn or even in the fresh air is hardly a sterile enviroment in the first place and its at this stage that it's most likely to get an infection.

Having said that, I wouldn't risk a batch myself. No point sinking the ship for a hapeth of tar.

Cheers for that. I'm actually thinking of heating the bottles in the over. This could work ok. My grip is I dont like rinsing as it wastes loads of water!

Tell me, has anybody pasteurised their brew after bottling? That is heating at 140F or 60C for 20 mins?

Rich

[steve_flack]

You could use a no-rinse sanitiser. I use peracetic acid which on clean bottles only needs a squirt and short contact time. Peracetic is a bit 'commercial' and, although widely used in micros etc isn't available to HBers unless you have contacts with local micros. StarSan is another alternative but that's imported from the US by only one (maybe more) shops and supplies are intermittant. You need very little starsan as a sanitiser - 2ml in a litre.

[Philipek]

Is iodophor available in the UK? That's no rinse, too.

If not, try bleach. I've had some infections in my beer, so I've been looking up sanitation and cleaning. Listened to the podcasts on Basic Brewing about iodophor and Star San. Interestingly, the guy who runs the Star San company spent most of the podcast talking about the homebrew application of bleach as a sanitizer. He said that 1 fluid ounce of 5% bleach added to 5 US gallons of water (don't know what that is in proper measures) along with 1 fluid ounce of vinegar makes a great sanitizer and, to my utter amazement, he claims you don't need to rinse that either. Don't mix straight bleach and vinegar because that produces unspeakably dangerous gasses.

This same guy on the podcast talks about air sterilization. He says in the oven at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 3 and half hours!!! I might try that though, in future, because it actually sterilizes the bottles. I have no idea why I got infections. I don't know how I could be more rigorous in my cleaning and sanitation.

[delboy]

Cheers for that. I'm actually thinking of heating the bottles in the over. This could work ok. My grip is I dont like rinsing as it wastes loads of water!

Tell me, has anybody pasteurised their brew after bottling? That is heating at 140F or 60C for 20 mins?

Rich

Dry heat is a very ineffective way of killing bugs you'd have to leave them in the oven for a reasonably long time, if it was a toss up between leaving the oven on for a few hours or 'wasting' a few litres of water rinsing bottles i know which one i'd prefer (better for the wallet and your tree hugging side if that floats your boat ).

[GARYSMIFF]

I decided to give a steam cleaner a chance today when I did my Bottles, albeit they are clean ( no solids ) quick 5 sec blast with the Steam and a quick washout with water.



I was at a beer fest and I was speaking to a chap who used those small can't get your hand in kegs for his Cider and Beer and I asked how he cleaned them out.
He said "a steam cleaner", now I use a pressure washer for my kegs but always get my hand in and give it a good going over and brewclean or other and a good dry out.

any one else use steam?

I expect I would have drunk my beer before it goes off.

[GARYSMIFF]

15-20 mins of wet steam per bottle to thoroughly sanitise could get a bit time consuming.

That long

don't plan on keeping my brew in a bottle very long, I'll stick to my soak and flush in future then.


live and learn.

[towser]

I normally rinse the bottles using the pressure washer adapter that fits on the outside tap. That gets rid of any stuff on the inside. I then sit them all in my metal severin boiler (it gets 19 bottles in at a time), fill with cold water and bring to the boil for 30 mins. I then let the water cool and slowly drain before drying on a bottle dryer stand. I've never had an issue with this method and by heating the water from cold, the bottles don't crack.