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sanitizing bottle caps

brick101

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Hi everyone, for about 3 years now I have been bottling my home brew without sanitizing the caps. My friend was over the other night while I was bottling and he could not believe I did not sanitize the caps. I have never had any problem not doing it, however none of my homebrew gets to stay around long.  ;D Does anyone else not sanitize there caps?
 
I used to boil them but now I just dunk them in Star San (the bottle capper too). I guess you got lucky, but I don't trust to luck.
 
I don't bottle anymore.  But, the rule is sanitize plain caps... But, not o2 absorbing ones. The o2 absorbing chemical is activated by water and rendered useless by sanitizer.
 
The oxygen absorbing liner is activated by getting wet.  You should turn your bottles over quickly after capping to make sure its activated before storing.  I only bottle for comps and have gone back to plain steel caps for that sanitizing reason.
 
I have a tupperware cap bowl that I fill with sanitizing solution and put my caps in.  As I fill a bottle, I put it on my rolling cabinet, reach into the bowl, pull out a cap from the tupperware bowl and place it on top of the bottle.  Once all of my bottles are filled, I seal six at a time with my bottle capper and put them into my utility sink.  Once they are all full, I used warm water to spray down the bottles and rinse any overflowed beer off of the bottles.  I then take the bottles and put them upside down in my fast racks to air dry.  Once they are mostly dry, I hand dry them completely and put them in cases for conditioning time.  I usually give them about three weeks, then throw one in the fridge for two days.  I sample that one, if I think they're conditioned, I put the rest into my beer fridge.  I had to start kegging, since I'm brewing beyond my beer fridges capacity now. 

Eventually, I'll have 8 kegs (five in the keezer) and three waiting, with the rest in bottles.  The bottles will eventually be reserved for high ABV and sours only.  The kegs for everyday drinking beers.
 
Thanks for the input people. Guess it does not make sense not to do it. I usually fill all my bottles first then cap them all at once. By that time, I have sanitized everything and usually forgotten to sanitize the caps. It all started with me forgetting, and having an unopened bag of caps, thinking it would be alright, and it was, so I have gotten in the habit of not doing it. Like TAHammerton said,  Just by luck I haven't had a bad experience. From now on I do it!!!!
 
I pour some of the idophor that I use to sanitize my bottling bucket into the Vinator and put the caps in there so that they are within the same reaching distance as the bottles on the draining tree
 
happy hillbilly said:
what in the world could marthanic say about sanitizing bottle caps that would have taken 5 posts n who reads that language.

It's spam. I''m sure the mods will delete it.

Don't click the links or the .gif. Those are usually methods to install viruses and spyware on unsuspecting computers.
 
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