Bottling Day Part 1: Bottle Cleaning

My Bottle Washing Station

For almost all new home brewers, bottling your very own beer is one of the most rewarding parts of being a home brewer. Seeing all of your hard work become a finished, packaged product is incredible! But as you brew more and more one thing becomes evident, bottling beer is work, hard work! This is why so many people jump straight to kegs after only a few batches of beer, but bottling doesn't have to be a pain or even hard work! And in fact with some experience and preparation, bottling day can actually be quite easy, and almost therapeutic! There are a few tricks that will make bottle cleaning as painless as it can possibly be and will have you cleaning your bottles like a pro. Below I have outlined the keys things you need to get a handle on if you want to make your bottling process as easy and painless as possible. After all, you didn't get into home brewing to spend hours scrubbing and cleaning did you! 

Preparation, Rinsing & Bottle Storage

Preparation is key to having an easy and painless bottling experience and it all starts with your bottles. The number one rule for recycling bottles for home brew is always keep them clean! That means that if your bottles were previously filled with either commercial beer or a previous batch of home brew, they should be rinsed as soon as you finish them. Never let your bottles stay dirty after you finish them or you will find yourself paying for it in extra time spent cleaning on bottling day. Now granted this may not be a problem for you if you like to clean, but you also run the risk of mould and other nasties growing inside your bottles as well. Yeast sediment is also much easier to remove when its fresh so do your future self a favour and rinse them as soon as they are empty. Also rinsing your bottles straight away will make sure you don't get an infestation on ants, yes ants! These little buggers just love a free sweet meal and i can tell you from experience, they can sniff out beer and wort like no other creature I know.

Once your bottles are rinsed and ready for the next batch you want to make sure you store them properly, and a large container with a clip down lid is the ideal solution. You want to keep your bottles safe from dust and other airborne particles as well as creepy crawlies, yes, you don't want cockroaches or the aforementioned ants taking up residence in your beer bottles! In the picture above you can one of my bottle storage containers with the yellow lid. This container holds approximately 24 glass 750ml bottles and is heavy duty enough to be stackable when loaded to keep my brew shed as neat and tidy as possible. This container also keeps my glass bottles safe while i heat sanitise them which i will talk more about in a minute and for only $20 it was a bargain that should last me for years.

Bottle Cleaning Day

Now you've got your bottle stored and ready for cleaning and ssanitizing, the next consideration is where are you going to clean them, and this decision will be based on your access to a suitable water source and space for everything you'll need. For many people the laundry or kitchen get commandeered on bottling day which for some people works quite well. For others though you might find your laundry is just too small or not suitable for cleaning dozens of bottle at a time, or that your kitchen is always in use. In these cases you will have to find an alternative location like i have under an awning at the back of my house. Now if you find yourself having to clean your bottles outside you will have to have access to a tap and be able to transport hot water to where you are if you are going to use hot water for cleaning and sanitizing. And lastly it goes without saying that cleaning bottles outside on a windy day where stuff is blowing around everywhere is probably not going to work too well. In that case you will have to either wait for better weather or find a way to clean inside.

How I Clean My Bottles

Cleaning PET Bottles First with 50c Water

I used to clean my bottles in my laundry but quickly found the space just too tight to be able to do the job without either making a mess and or running out of space for everything. So for me the solution was to clean outside  and use my brewing hot liquor tank/kettle to heat my water for me. The night before i'm going to clean my bottles I take my water kettle and set it up on a table under our rear awning and get the power cables ready and fill it up with enough water for the number of bottles i need to clean/sanitize. I then have two options, i can either come out first thing in the morning and switch it on or I can plug it into a timer and set it to switch on automatically for me. I set the temperature on my kettle to 50c for the first step if i'm going to clean any PET plastic bottles and once the PET bottles are filled with hot water and cleaning solution I then set it to at least 90c to heat sanitize and glass bottles that i have ready. I used to use PBW or other brewery cleaners in my glass bottles but tried just using heat from near boiling water recently and so far after several batches of bottled beer i havent had any issues with the cleanliness of those bottles or infections. Doing it this way with glass bottles has saved me the extra step of having to rinse them which is a huge time saver. For my PET plastic bottles i still dose them with a small amount of PBW or similar cleaner at the rate of about 1/8th teaspoon per bottle then i fill them with 50c water, goive them a good shake and let them soak for at least 20 minutes, 10 minutes on one side and then ten minutes on the other side.

Filling Glass Bottles with 90c Water

As soon as ive finish my PET bottles I then turn up the temperature to 90c and wait for the kettle to warm up. While its warming up I can go inside and do other things like make coffee or breakfast! Once its headted to 90c I put my glass bottles underneath my kettle and proceed to fill them to the brim with hot water, being carefull not to burn myself. A good heat resistant kitchen mitt here is a must, as well as proper silicon tubing that can withstand the high temperature. When i've filled all the bottles I put the lid on the container to keep out any nasties and either go back to other things if im only cleaning glass bottles, or now is a good time to empty my PET bottles and give each of them a good rinse to remove any residue from the cleaner.

Conclusion

Now that we've got our bottles cleaned and ready to go there is one last step before we fill them with precious beer, we sanitize! But that will be the subject of the next blog post where i will go into detail about the process of sanitation and how i sanitize both glass and PET bottles. Till next time, cheers and keep on brewing!