Brew Tips: Cleaning Bottles

This has always seemed like a no-brainer to me, but how to keep bottles clean for homebrewing is a fairly common question.  So, here’s my take: keep the bottles wet until they are cleaned.  As soon as you pour your brew (or within an hour or two after), rinse out the bottle and make sure to get out all of the sediment and such in the bottle.  Put some dish soap in the bottle (preferably scent free, like you should be using for all of your brewing equipment) and refill it.  Let it sit for a few days to ensure everything has lifted from the surface, including the protein ring around the neck resultant from the second fermentation to bottle condition.  For particularly stubborn protein rings, run a finger along the inside of the bottle neck.  Afterwords, rinse well to get out all the soap, and store someplace clean.  Later, use a no-rinse sanitizer such as StarSan immediately before bottling (don’t fear the foam!).

Bottles to clean

If you do happen to let your bottles sit dirty, don’t bother trying to scrub them out with a brush, it just doesn’t work well enough and can even scratch the bottle.  Instead, mix a solution of about 4 tablespoons (1/4 cup) bleach in one gallon water (16 mL per liter) and fill the bottles in question- a funnel works well here.  After a few hours, you should see everything begin to lift off the surface; leave for a day or few and rinse very (very) well.  Examine with a light; repeat if you see anything suspect.  You can also try a slightly higher concentration of bleach, but anything over this amount should be used with extreme care, only when needed.

As for taking off labels on newly-used bottles, I’ve found letting them sit for about a half hour in in a sink full of hot soapy water allows them to peel off far more easily.  I can fit about 18 bottles at a time in my sink. Different breweries use different glues- some are easily water soluble, some need the heat.  You can use the back side of a butter knife to scrape off less cooperative labels, but some companies use glue I wouldn’t even bother with without some sort of industrial solvent, especially small craft breweries it seems (at least those in my area).  Use the scrubber side of a sponge (not one of those green 3M scrubber pads- they are actually sharp enough to scratch the glass somehow) to get the remaining glue and bits of label off.  I have also heard that hot PWB is an excellent label remover, but I’ve never been able to justify the cost of it.

I’ve always found Sierra Nevada has the easiest labels to get off, while most bottles are doable but slightly annoying.  Make sure to rinse these bottles as you finish them, though- you don’t want to be dealing with gunk on the inside while removing labels.  You probably don’t need to soap-soak them right away so long as they are rinsed, unless it happens to be a bottle-conditioned beer (Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, for example).

[2014.08.02 UPDATE: I now exclusively use PWB to wash bottles.  Its pricey, but its a one-time cost—I just keep a large bucket full in the garage and move bottles in and out.  I switched because I noticed some bottles, especially from longer-aged brews, had a small bit of build-up that soap alone wouldn’t remove.  A bottle brush would get it off, but would sometimes leaves small patches where the brush didn’t contact.  And brushing bottles sucks.  Hard.  As a bonus, PWB removes labels like magic—they fall right off.  The only trick is to use hot water for rinsing, as it can be hard to wash off otherwise.]

– Dennis
Life, Fermented

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