Sanitising help needed please!

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DaviB35

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Hi all

Me and the wife need to bottle a brew that has finished fermenting. We haven't done a brew for nearly a year and our bottles were stored away and a bit manky after 12 months in a cupboard.

She has soaked the bottles in lemon scented Fairy Liquid for 10 minutes before sterilising them with sanitising powder.

I've heard you should only use certain cleaning products.

Will the lemon scented washing up liquid have ruined the bottles? We intend to rinse them thoroughly when sanitised before giving them a big blast all over with the steam cleaner.

Worried the chemicals in the FL will remain and taint the brew inside though during carbonation.

Any advice welcome lads

Dave
 
Oh Man, Never, ever, ever use anything with soap in it to clean ANYTHING related to brewing!!! The surfactants in the soap will destroy any head retention, plus they are designed not to be easily rinsed away.

Clean your bottles with plain unscented percarbonate cleaner, I use PBW but you can get stuff from Walmart in the laundry aisle that will do. the job, rinse it out a couple of times with hot water, and then sanitise with starsan, its no rinse so quick to d. A great tip I've heard is to rinse the bottles clean with hot water when you empty the beer out of them, and then add about a teaspoon of diluted star san to the bottle and cap with foil , then when you come to bottle the bottle is already sanitised and ready to use.
 
Thanks for your response Brew_Mike.

That's what I feared. Is there anything I can do to salvage these bottles or are they no good now?

Considering maybe cleaning them in a caustic soda solution with the hope of removing any remnants of soap before sterilising again.

Do you think this would correct the soap mistake?

Dave
 
Just really hot water with some laundry oxi will shift it. I take it you guys use a 'one step' cleanser/steriliser, if that is the case then RDWHAHB as that will have cleared it
 
You can get a cheap, unscented, sodium percarbonate from Lidl called 'W5'. It's about £2.50 for a Kilo.

You could also get a cheap bottle brush from Wilkos for a couple of quid. I cut the end off this and stick it in my cordless drill :-o

What I do for a good clean is soak/submerge the bottles in the W5/water mix for 24hrs*, rinse out a few times, then use the bottle brush / drill to give it a real good scrub inside.

Finish with another rinse out then a scoosh of Star San to sanitise. :D

Surely this would remove all traces of your lemon Fairy...

*extra long soak is to remove labels/glue which works a treat
 
Thanks for the advice guys. Brilliant and friendly as ever on this great site.

We have used a one shot steriliser and cleanser so, to be on the safe side, we're going to drain now, steam all of the bottles (they're mouldy inside and dusty outside) then sterilise one more time to make sure they're spot on and clean.

Hopefully we'll be ok. I suppose we'll only find out when we open the first bottle in a few weeks.

That cleaning drill sounds ace! Gotta get me one of those!!!

Thanks again chaps

I'll update how we got on after tasting

Dave
 
dont leave a strong solution of warm laundry oxi too long so that it cools, if mixed too strong a cooler solution can drop crystals which weld themselves to the vessls walls and bottom, and they can be a B*gger to shift...
its an error i made whit my thermopot tun being lazy after a brew i left it soaking overnight with an extra scoop nor two for (bad) luck!!.. on return the next day the tun bottom was covered in a layer of welded on crystals that needed a scrape and a few kettles of boiling water to shift - a real pita if found in bottles
 
Brew_Mike said:
Oh Man, Never, ever, ever use anything with soap in it to clean ANYTHING related to brewing!!! The surfactants in the soap will destroy any head retention, plus they are designed not to be easily rinsed away.

Clean your bottles with plain unscented percarbonate cleaner, I use PBW but you can get stuff from Walmart in the laundry aisle that will do. the job, rinse it out a couple of times with hot water, and then sanitise with starsan, its no rinse so quick to d. A great tip I've heard is to rinse the bottles clean with hot water when you empty the beer out of them, and then add about a teaspoon of diluted star san to the bottle and cap with foil , then when you come to bottle the bottle is already sanitised and ready to use.
Click to expand...

I've been washing my bottles in fairy liquid and then cleaning with bruclens and I've had shocking head retention...now I know why.
 
This thread has answered a question for me, in my latest BIAB brews I'm getting no head or retention at all, so think it's down to the way I've been washing my bottles.

The confusing thing is I'm not doing anything different than I've done when making kits, and I normally get to the bottom of the glass with still having about 1cm of head on top of the beer :hmm:

I wash in a weak washing up liquid solution, rinse a few times then sanitise with starsan.

Will have to change my process on my next brews to see if that makes a difference.
 
Even the glass you pour your beer into can destroy the head if it's just been washed up with washing up liquid and dried. Always give your glass a thorough rinse out with just water before you use it.
 
So what is the best (read: easiest) way to clean bottles? I like the convenience of doing them in the sink with the dishes. Would hot water and a bottle brush do the job assuming they're done soon after emptying?
 
use a fermenting bucket to soak in warm unscented laundry oxi for 10 mins+, than when u pull one out for a rinse and sanitation (spray with starsan from a trigger mist bottle) replace it with another bottle, depending on your bucket u should get 8-12 bottle in submerged, and when sanitised either cover with sanitised foil or stand upturned in a sanitised crate.
 
Fil said:
use a fermenting bucket to soak in warm unscented laundry oxi for 10 mins+, than when u pull one out for a rinse and sanitation (spray with starsan from a trigger mist bottle) replace it with another bottle, depending on your bucket u should get 8-12 bottle in submerged, and when sanitised either cover with sanitised foil or stand upturned in a sanitised crate.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that'd do the job but I'd much rather pre clean my bottles as and when they empty. Any good way for doing this?
 
DoctorMick said:
I'm sure that'd do the job but I'd much rather pre clean my bottles as and when they empty. Any good way for doing this?
Click to expand...

warm water and perhaps a bottle brush prior to sanitising and capping with foil.

starsan is worth the initial investment as the bottle will last a good few years and the resulting solution is persistent so in the long run works out way cheaper and saves countless post chlorine based sanitiser rinse cycles.
 
Fil said:
warm water and perhaps a bottle brush prior to sanitising and capping with foil.

starsan is worth the initial investment as the bottle will last a good few years and the resulting solution is persistent so in the long run works out way cheaper and saves countless post chlorine based sanitiser rinse cycles.
Click to expand...
Cheers, I was hoping water would be sufficient. I clean up fairly soon after emptying so I'm sure it'll be good enough. I've picked up 70 empties from the pub so I'll have to buy something to give them an initial clean.

I'm got star san and a bottle tree on my Christmas list, as well as reducing the time it takes I really want to cut down on my water waste so this should make a big difference.
 
Fil said:
dont leave a strong solution of warm laundry oxi too long so that it cools, if mixed too strong a cooler solution can drop crystals which weld themselves to the vessls walls and bottom, and they can be a B*gger to shift...
its an error i made whit my thermopot tun being lazy after a brew i left it soaking overnight with an extra scoop nor two for (bad) luck!!.. on return the next day the tun bottom was covered in a layer of welded on crystals that needed a scrape and a few kettles of boiling water to shift - a real pita if found in bottles
Click to expand...

Just rinsed and sanitised a mix of glass & Coopers Ox-bar PET that I left soaking for over a week (unintentionally). Thought they might be a bucket job if any sign of crystals but no, they came out squeaky clean. Spent ages peering through them too - def spotless inside :-)

Might have been okay due to my solution being quite weak at two heaped scoops in 20l of water? No matter - max 24hrs from now on for bottle soaking.

Thanks for the heads up though, have my Cornie to do soon, that'll be getting 10 mins! :cheers:
 
I put some solucaps sanitiser in my PB once and it stunk for ages, no matter what I did it wouldn't go. I ended up adding chlorine tablets in the dishwasher with the PB on soak mode to finally get rid of it.

I Oxy > Chlorine > Campden my FVs and it works a treat.
 
Fil said:
warm water and perhaps a bottle brush prior to sanitising and capping with foil.

starsan is worth the initial investment as the bottle will last a good few years and the resulting solution is persistent so in the long run works out way cheaper and saves countless post chlorine based sanitiser rinse cycles.
Click to expand...


I have over the years accumulated 9 crates of Newkie Brown clear bottles.They hadn't been touched for years so I wanted to get them all in good order to start brewing again and try to cut down the hard work of cleaning and sanitising.
So I got em all clean and started using them-Ithought if I gave them a good rinse straight after use and use Starsan before re-use ,job done. But because I'm using clear bttls I noticed (only when the bttls dried out) a film on the inside of the bttl.If you use brown bttls you won't see this film so won't know its there. I tried shaking the bttl with 1/2 tsp vwp and water to see if it shifted it -it didn't.So fwiw here is my bttl cleaning/sanitising routine .
I rinse all bttls after use . After a few build up I wash these out with a bttl brush and VWP and rinse.The brush will remove the film..Bttls then stored in crates covered with shrink wrap.When its time to bttl I use a Ferrari bttl rinser with Starsan-sploosh- and onto the bttle tree(on Santas list) Seems easier this way as you don't have to do it all at once and Starsan in the bttl rinser is a breeze. After I clean the bttls the used VWP gets tipped onto the dishcloth -job done :thumb:
 
Herbiehep said:
I have over the years accumulated 9 crates of Newkie Brown clear bottles.They hadn't been touched for years so I wanted to get them all in good order to start brewing again and try to cut down the hard work of cleaning and sanitising.
So I got em all clean and started using them-Ithought if I gave them a good rinse straight after use and use Starsan before re-use ,job done. But because I'm using clear bttls I noticed (only when the bttls dried out) a film on the inside of the bttl.If you use brown bttls you won't see this film so won't know its there. I tried shaking the bttl with 1/2 tsp vwp and water to see if it shifted it -it didn't.So fwiw here is my bttl cleaning/sanitising routine .
I rinse all bttls after use . After a few build up I wash these out with a bttl brush and VWP and rinse.The brush will remove the film..Bttls then stored in crates covered with shrink wrap.When its time to bttl I use a Ferrari bttl rinser with Starsan-sploosh- and onto the bttle tree(on Santas list) Seems easier this way as you don't have to do it all at once and Starsan in the bttl rinser is a breeze. After I clean the bttls the used VWP gets tipped onto the dishcloth -job done :thumb:
Click to expand...

Yes, I sometimes get a build up of that film as well, only noticeable on clear and green bottles. I assume it's just dried on dead yeast. I only really bother with it when it starts to get unsightly when I just scrub it with a bottle brush.
I sanitise with boiling water and even if I don't bother removing the film it doesn't seem to cause problems with the beer, though I guess it might shorten the time the beer would keep for if it ever got the chance.
 

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