• Welcome to the new forum! We upgraded our forum software with a host of new boards, capabilities and features. It is also more secure.
    Jump in and join the conversation! You can learn more about the upgrade and new features here.

Bottling Day Questions

dwb9124

Apprentice
Joined
May 30, 2011
Messages
7
Reaction score
0
When learning about washing fermenting equipment, I read it was better to use something like Oxyclean, as dish detergent could leave a film on your equipment.

I plan to use the antibacterial cycle on my dishwasher, with heat for my bottles. Should I not use the dishwasher detergent? Is this an issue at all, or should I just use the detergent? Obviously I am also going to use a no rinse sanitizer on the bottles after washing...
 
When I bottle, I do the anti bacterial cycle, no detergent and no no rinse.  I've been doing it this way for 8 years and I've never had a problem.  If I bottle, I generally set the bottling bucket on the counter above the dishwasher and use the open door as a filling platform.  obviously, you want to leave the dishwasher closed until you bottle.
 
Pretty much what Matty said - but I will elaborate a bit. Your bottles should already be "clean" meaning they are new or were well rinsed out and then stored in a relatively clean spot. Meaning there is no crud in your bottles.

First scrub both sinks with a srubber and dish soap to remove ANY food junk. Now fill a sink with hot soapy water using a dish soap that has: no dyes - no fragrance - and is bio-degradable.  Now put four 22oz bottles (or six 12oz) into soak for a few minutes. Now run a bottle brush thru a bottle quickly but throughly and place it the other sink with the soapy water still in it. repeat for all the soaking bottles. Now before rinsing those bottles put more bottles in the soapy water to soak. Next grab one of the clean bottles and dump its soapy water back into the the soapy water in the other sink and then rinse it our three times or more -- get all soap off the outside and inside !  Place neck down in the dishwasher ... repeat ... repeat ...

Now close the dishwasher (NO SOAP USED) and run on the sanitary setting. I have bottled 30 batches with no issues.

Good Luck --- there be a lot of swabbin' in his here pursuit
 
Back
Top