bottling...

[bigbob]

seem to have found the house empty this afternoon so thought i'd quickly bottle up the mexican cerveza and thought of a couple of questions....may get totally shot down for asking stupid ones but here goes: should i sterilise my bottle caps? and also i remember sterilising pickle/jam jars by taking off the rubber seal and putting them in an oven at 120-150 c for 10 minutes, i was wondering whether anyone thinks this is feasible for glass beer bottles if i wash them out first and let them cool before bottling so that it doesnt kill off yeast before secondary fermentation? anyone got any clues?
cheers in advance
bob

[Garth]

yep, sanitise your caps, there could be all kinds of nasties on them.

[bigbob]

cheers for that, got it just as i started capping so big thumbs up on timing. took hours to sanitize and bottle up, wasn't impressed. need to find a way of speeding up the process....or just keg more. still anyone any ideas on the oven idea or is it just a non starter?

[garwatts]

cheers for that, got it just as i started capping so big thumbs up on timing. took hours to sanitize and bottle up, wasn't impressed. need to find a way of speeding up the process....or just keg more. still anyone any ideas on the oven idea or is it just a non starter?

Dry mine in the oven every time - works a treat and haven't had a bad one yet

[randomdave]

Im not sure id wanna put crown caps in the oven cos they have plastic seals and i wouldnt want em to melt. Not only that im not sure if they would stink the house out.

Ive never bothered to sanitse my caps. They never touch the beer so unless its obviously dirty i just use it.

[Big Al]

Surely though whilst moving bottles into storage and passing around, there comes a chance of beer splashing your crown caps?
I sanitize my becauase I tend to prime from the bottle, so I have to rotate the bottles a good few times anway.

[brysie]

no dave ya wally,

dont put the caps in the oven, sanitise and rinse carefully after.
not sure if you can beat a non rinse sanitiser and the old bottle tree personally.

[Garth]

I generally bottle 80 - 100 bottles at a time and I've got it down to about just under an hour and a half, admittedly the wife helps me.

She starts sanitising bottles with one of those pump squirt things, by the time she has finished the first 45 the first ones are ready to rinse and hang on the bottle tree, meanwhile I sanitise and connect up the bottling gun, once she has done 12, I start to bottle, I have a bench capper and as long as all your bottles are the same height it is well quick.

using no rinse sanitiser would knock even more time off, but my StarSan leaked after the lid got cracked and I haven't gotten any more. Also if I had a bench and sink in the garage this would help as I'm cleaning and capping them in the kitchen and bottling where the cornies are in the garage.

Bottling is the least favourite of the brewing process for me but I still don't mind it, I like the end product, and I give quite a bit to friends and family.

[RatboyOllie]

I bottled a batch of beer for the first time and hated it, it took me ages from start to finish and was a real pain in the asse.

Then I bought a bottle tree, a little bottler and a bottle of starsan after reading Chris-x1's explanation in the faq section on here, cheers by the way!!

Seriously its amazing. Its so much easier its quite untrue, rinsing/sanitising in one go and then leaving to drain on the bottle tree is just so much easier. Then using the little bottler to fill and a bog standard dual lever crown capper to cap. Dare I say it, I actually enjoyed it !!

I bought mine from hope and grape online coz he didnt have any at Brewmart where i usually shop and all in all it cost about 30quid i think, for the 80 bottle tree, the rinser thing for the top and a bottle of starsan. Im as tight as they come usually but this was a sound investment in my eyes !

definitely worth a look

good luck

Ollie

[Operator]

I had not heard of starsan until I read this thread, after a bit of research it sounds great. I'm just about to start bottling, having only kegged before, but I can't seem to find any starsan in my normal companies. Any ideas where to get some?

Cheers.

[Operator]

Just found it herehttp://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/catalog/detailV2_ ... TA20085879& thanks to bryggsmester, but it is out of stock

[bigbob]

was talking about bottles in the oven not the caps.....while ive made a few schoolboys while brewing, melting all my caps hasn't been one of them thank god. did think about a bottle tree but figured it couldnt be that hard/take that long and guess what? it did. 3 and a half hours to bottle 40 pints! live and learn. definitely moving onto a bottle tree soon. anyways once it was out of the way ive started off the old coopers stout and its already got the legendary head on the fv. smells lovely already (18 hours in) and cant wait to try it

[pongobilly]

how is the starsan made up and used???

[Operator]

there is a whole starsan thread I found whilst searching. Sounds like good stuff. Gives all instructions in the thread.

[RatboyOllie]

hiya chaps,

if you go to the FAQ's up the top there is a full thread by Daab about no rinse sanitisers. The starsan explanation is down near the bottom. I got mine from hop and grape, bizarrely seems to be the only place you can get this stuff?? I bought a 5 litre bottle of water from asda for 90p and added, i cant remember, but it was either 4 or 6 millilitres or something tiny like that to the entire bottle of water and that is enough ! I put a little bit in the top of my bottle tree washer and did a full 80 bottles, it foams up like mad and sanitizes on contact, or at least whilst they are draining on the bottle tree. Even if there are bubbles left in your bottle when you bottle your brew it has no adverse affects and apparently serves as a food for the yeasties with no tastes given off at all. Used properly this stuff will last me for absolutely ages, it goes a very long way.

have a read of Daab's thread, its brilliant

if anyone finds any of this stuff elsewhere please post ! cheers