Question on bottle Sterilization

Dayo93

Is it ok to sterilize your bottles a day or two before bottling or should you really do it just prior to bottling ?

oblivious

I use star-san to sterilizing and it can be used a day or to before bottling/kegging

BeerNut

Stick a bit of clingfilm over the mouth of the bottle and it'll be fine for weeks.

sharingan

BeerNut wrote: »

Stick a bit of clingfilm over the mouth of the bottle and it'll be fine for weeks.

Good to know. Loads of cling film & elastic bands around the house. Sterilisation is a PITA, especially when the fermenter (the only device big enough to immerse en masse) is in constant use.

Donny5

sharingan wrote: »

Good to know. Loads of cling film & elastic bands around the house. Sterilisation is a PITA, especially when the fermenter (the only device big enough to immerse en masse) is in constant use.

I just pop them in a dishwasher before use, if you have one. Otherwise, you could get a €10 plastic storage crate from Woodies and plonk them in there. I store my bottles after drinking out the back in one of these filled with a sterilising solution.

sharingan

Donny5 wrote: »

I just pop them in a dishwasher before use, if you have one. Otherwise, you could get a €10 plastic storage crate from Woodies and plonk them in there. I store my bottles after drinking out the back in one of these filled with a sterilising solution.

Good ideas. Space is a premium in my house atm (rented/shared). I use the dishwasher on the glass bottles alright, but they are easy to sterilise in general (smaller etc.). The large carbonated drinks bottles give me a bit of a hassle.

homebrew.ie

There is a really handy bit of equipment for steralising called a bottle rinser. You just put your steraliser and hot water into its bowl then press the bottle down onto it 2-3 times. Its pump action so the steraliser gets sprayed with a fair force to every bit of the bottle. It takes the pain out of steralising. If your stuck for space for drying them after the rincer can go on top of a bottle draining tree the holds 45 bottles.

Denis7

Someone mentioned a bottle washer, I have 84 plastic PET bottles (half of em full of IPA) and their a pain in the hole to wash n sterilise. There is a homebrew company that sells one but says its no good for PET bottles, anyone know where I can find one that will do? I use VWP and bottle brush to clean them and then drop in a bucket of water and light bleach for a couple of hours, rinse em and let em drip dry - pain in the hole.

Donny5

Denis7 wrote: »

Someone mentioned a bottle washer, I have 84 plastic PET bottles (half of em full of IPA) and their a pain in the hole to wash n sterilise. There is a homebrew company that sells one but says its no good for PET bottles, anyone know where I can find one that will do? I use VWP and bottle brush to clean them and then drop in a bucket of water and light bleach for a couple of hours, rinse em and let em drip dry - pain in the hole.

What I do with the few Cooper's PET bottles I have is to pop them into the dishwasher on the cold rinse setting with some VWP in the powder tray. After drinking, I do also store all my bottles in a bleach bath in a plastic container in the back, so I'm usually not worried about sterilisation, and so I'm not sure if the cold rinse would do on it's own.

Menolias

Hi there i have the coopers PET bottles myself and have the bottle steriliser and drain tree too,the only issue with the pet bottles is that the mouth is too wide for the sterilisers push down piston.add a washer/spacer and hey presto it works fine.

Denis7

Thanks Donny & Menolias, I'll use the dishwasher for the next batch and order the steriliser and tree. What do you use with the steriliser? Starsan?
Thanks again.