Cleaning and disinfecting all of the bottles is always the biggest pain in the butt part of the whole bottling adventure. In the past I've used good-ole fashioned bleach, mainly because it's cheap. Unfortunately, bleach requires a 30 minute soak to be effective. So, I would have to haul all of the bottles to the basement and soak them in the laudry tub, rinse them throughly, then haul them all back up to the kitchen.
At the suggestion of a brewing co-worker, I tried this last night. I used Iodophor, which is a no-rinse iodine solution, in the kitchen sink. Unlike bleach, it only requires 2 minutes of contact time. I was able to fit about half of the bottles in the sink at one time, then wait the 2 minutes, drain 'em and put 'em on the dishwasher rack to dry. Then, repeat w/ the second batch of bottles.The whole process was over and done in less than ten minutes. I really like this method and I'll stick with it in the future.
I use Grolsh bottles these days so I can skip the whole capping process. Plus the bottles are a true 16oz Pint, instead of the regular 12oz bottles, so you only need 40 bottles for a 5gal batch.
I don't really have any pointers for this step. However, I had the pictures so I figured I may as well throw them in here.
In the past, I've filled the bottles by using a 3' long hose to connect the bottling wand to the bottling bucket's spigot. Then I'd sit on the floor with the line of bottles, and fill them by moving the wand from one bottle to the next. My coworker suggested this setup, where the wand is attached to the spigot with just a 1" piece of hose. You then lift the bottle up onto the wand to fill it.
In theory, it sounds nice, but in practice I didn't like it. The wand hangs so low that you still need to sit on the floor. Plus, I having to grab and lift each bottle takes longer than moving the wand itself. I'll use my original method from now on.
Now I have to come visit just for Bourbon beer!
ReplyDeleteWould hydrogen peroxide be a good cleaner/sterilizer?
I'm not sure. There are several no-rinse cleaners out there. I believe one of them is some sort of powder that is supposed to release hydrogen peroxide. I've not tried that one yet.
ReplyDeleteI use iodaphor, too. It does seem to work well. Could you run the bottles through the dishwasher without detergent? Wouldn't a hot water bath in the dishwasher also sanitize things?
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced that the dishwasher would be able to get the water up and into the bottles. It wouldn't hurt to try it but you'd risk a funky batch if it didn't work.
ReplyDeleteIn my case, my dishwasher is only 18" wide and I wouldn't be able to fit a batch of bottles in there.
Another thing I thought of: The Iodophore will stain plastics, not a problem in my stainless steel sink, but I'm not sure what it would do to a Corian-like material.