Franconia Beer Message Board
Sanitizing bottles |
| Posted by barry on 2014-03-27 04:58:14 |
| I must be really lucky - I simply rinse through both swing-top bottles (sourced from Hirschbrau, Leipheim) and PET bottles, occasionally using one of the baby bottle santisers - presumably safe for beer bottles, if they are safe for baby bottles? All of my bottles have been used many times previously - I realise that this would not be good enough for a commercial brewery but I've never had an infected bottle and never suffered from any stomach problems as a result of my unclean methods. I find the 2 litre PET bottles useful - I don't drink my homebrew very rapidly but have never found any significant deterioration. Also, I can practice a trick derived from my pub days: if I open a 2 litre bottle and don't finish it in one evening, I carefully squash the bottle to exclude as much air as possible before screwing the top back on - I've found that the beer keeps good for several days using this trick. I only brew using top fermentation as I don't have the kit to do bottom fermentation - also it seems a mighty chore for little real advantage. Re primary and secondary fermentation: I ferment in a sealed plastic bucket, using a water filled airlock to exclude air. I bottle when fermentation has slowed down to neglible proportions and put one of those little tables (presumably some sort of sugar) into the bottles before filling. This encourages secondary fermentation. I've never had a bottle burst and, as I said earlier, my beer seems to last for ages (some is more than a year since brewing) and seems to improve with age. Well, I like it anyway and so do my neighbours! Keep it simple! |
| Followups: |
 Sanitizing bottles by Nick B. on 2014-03-27 07:23:50 |
| Sanitizing bottles by barry on 2014-03-28 02:31:48 |
| Sanitizing bottles by Nick B. on 2014-03-28 02:46:10 |