Anyone used Milton for sterilising bottles etc ?

[Mo06]

Just wondering.

[timbo41]

not used milton but have used big supermarket own brand plenty of times and often do smaller items like tin opener and hydrometer with a few dissolvable tablets to save having to fill fv. one pack of sixty tablets is about enough for ten or so full fv's so quite cheap really.no probs with contamination to speak of using these

[Mo06]

Thanks, just checked and Milton is just diluted sodium hyperchrorite, ie bleach.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/sho ... p?p=277321

I ask as we don't have home brew shops in these parts, so when my 'Youngs' steriliser runs out, I was looking around for alternative sterilisers.

[timbo41]

thin bleach is a really cheap option. I have also managed to put a "squirty"lid on one bleach bottle, diluted the bleach down a little bit and now use it to instant sanitise spoons and hydrometer etc. just give a quick squirt leave a few minutes then rinse off. Again handy if you drop anything on floor and dont want to make up a full solution

[Pinto]

I like using thin bleach solution for bottle cleaning as I dont rinse it and it leaves a protective layer for when the bottles are in storage. If the bottles are going to be used straight away (or being taken out of storage) then I have a two dip system - 1 spare FV filled with hot VDP solution for ten minutes followed by a hot rinse in an FV with weak campden solution (you can use this system with bleach too as the campden kills off residual bleach nicely)

Milton & supermarket equivilents are usually no rinse too which is a bonus

[timbo41]

Never used campdens personally. To be honest thought they were for softening hard water.Now i know they get rid of residual chlorine I will incorporate them into regime. I often have an hour or so doing a sanitising session when I pick up new bottles and like Pinto I lay bottles away with plastic seals until needed, then blast rinse just before bottling


viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50295


I'm not manic about cleaning but it is necessary.. I just try to make my life as easy as possible!

[BeerEagle]

Milton & supermarket equivilents are usually no rinse too which is a bonus

No-rinse they may be, from the point of view of safety, ie. poisoning your kiddiewinks, but I don't think I'd like to risk leaving any trace of the flavour in my beer.

Campden or Sodium Metabisulphite is definitely the way to go clearing out chlorine/bleach flavours.

[Pinto]

Never used campdens personally. To be honest thought they were for softening hard water.Now i know they get rid of residual chlorine I will incorporate them into regime. I often have an hour or so doing a sanitising session when I pick up new bottles and like Pinto I lay bottles away with plastic seals until needed, then blast rinse just before bottling


viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50295


I'm not manic about cleaning but it is necessary.. I just try to make my life as easy as possible!

The campden idea came to me when I started treating my tap water for brew use with 1/2 a crushed campden tab after reading about it on here somewhere ( "...it removes chlorines and chloramines" so it said )...and suddenly the penny dropped - if it dechlorinates water, then what about when sterilising bottles ?

I use 8 tabs per vessel - just from observation really, its not a calculated quantity - bleachy bottle goes in, fresh smellin, non-bleachy bottle comes out Im sure others here have done more scientific research and could give you a precise breakdown, but I just trust my nose ( i could tell an interesting story about what detector was used when the GC analyser broke down in my uni days )

As I gain my bottles from the local PH, i normally have 40-60 per time to sterilise - and i collect twice a week anyone need a glass bottle ?

[timbo41]

Thats kind of when you wish the bottle fairy was on her rounds aint it I think its the worst part of the hobby hence why i keep fannying around with Heath Robinson type ideas to speed things up! Definitely going to start using campdens now though

[Soutie]

I use Milton for sterilizing both my fermentation barrel and bottles. With the Barrel I do rinse, but with the bottles I don't and I have never detected any tainting of the beer. I have been using Milton for the last three years and I do about 5 - 6 brews a year.

Peter

[Mo06]

"I use Milton for sterilizing both my fermentation barrel and bottles. With the Barrel I do rinse, but with the bottles I don't and I have never detected any tainting of the beer. I have been using Milton for the last three years and I do about 5 - 6 brews a year."

Stoutie, can you tell me the sort of strength of solution you use for this ?

I assume you don't use Milton neat ?

[Soutie]

For the Barrel, I use two tablets in about 10 liters of water and then do a rinse. I do however sterlise after a brew, and then after taking it out of storage when I am about to do a new brew.

For my bottles, after pouring my beer I rinse in cold plain water and then store. When I come to bottling a brew I fill the kitchen sink with hot water and two tablets. I then use that to soak five bottles at a time for a few minutes each, a good shake with solution inside and then drain on the draining rack. Once I have finished doing this for all 40 plus bottles I bottle the beer. When I started doing home brew I used to rinse with hot water after sterilizing, but a friend of my father said he never did and his beer did not taste tainted, so I gave it a try and have never looked back.

[cellone]

I used milton tablets left over from our over stocking first time parents syndrome. When I ran out I moved on to starsan. No rinse takes the chore out of cleaning.

[Kev888]

Yep I believe milton tablets are mostly bleach and salt; they work so thats fine, but its an expensive way to buy bleach compared to thin unscented supermarket products. Views are a tad mixed as to if weaker bleach solutions should be classed as no-rinse for food and brewing use though - personally I choose to use strongish mixes and rinse it so I'm not up on the latest thinking there.

Campden tablets (sodium met) can be used in rinse water to help neutralise bleach tastes. They also have some sterilising/sanitising abilities and it was common to use them like this in the past, but its not as comprehensive as some (especially if things aren't extremely clean) so bleach and modern sanitisers seem much more common these days.

If you need to physically clean off crudd before sanitising, then supermarket options include oxy powder, soda crystals, and stronger mixes of bleach. Dishwasher powder can also be used but some of their rinse aids can leave residues that reduce head so its not always good for cleaning bottles. Where the things you're sanitising can take heat, boiling in water for 20mins or baking for an hour or two in the oven can be a very effective way to sanitise too.

Starsan is very good as a no-rinse sanitiser and is my personal favourite for that - its works very quickly so no need to soak, which seems like magic to begin with, and even the mixed solution keeps fairly well so you can always have some in a spray bottle. Okay so its not usually locally available so is a bit left field, but a large bottle lasts for years so proximity to a home brew shop may not be as important - which is good as not many people sell it. Though you may well need to buy water locally to mix it with, as most tap water and some bottled water changes its PH too much and stops it working.

This is mostly just stuff I've picked up from JBK - I'm not an expert on such things myself.

Cheers
Kev