dishwasher for bottle cleaning

[tj beerman]

do you use detergent
it contains sodium carbonate and bleach

[Magnew]

If it has a properly functioning heated dry cycle, you don't need detergent. It's the heat. Also, detergent will probably effect head retention or even kill the yeast because it never rinses completely in the dishwasher.

[danno]

tj, your dishwasher is not adequate for cleaning. you won't get enough liquid up inside the bottles to do a decent job of cleaning. Sorry, but it's going to be a manual process, especially if you don't rinse your homebrew bottles right after use.

it has been discussed previously that the dishwasher, with the heat on, can be used to sanitize already clean bottles....

[chris1kanobi]

I agree with Danno, the dishwasher will clean the outside and the heat cycle will sanitize the bottles, but the crud inside needs to be soaked in PBW and scrubbed with a bottle brush first. Rinse every bottle a few times after drinking it and you won't get the "blue fur".:D

[Magnew]

Yes, I forgot to say in my post that the bottles already need to be clean.

[orb]

I do this and it works everytime. Rinse bottles five times with hot water after using till all the gunk is gone. The day before bottling, fill each bottle with a TBSP of bleach and COLD water...bleach is more effective in cold than hot water. Empty dishwasher, dump bleach down drain before bottling and put bottles in dishwasher with NO SOAP-it creates a film. Lay em sideways so they fill with hot water....stop the dishwasher every 15 minutes and rinse bottles. Stop at the dry stage and move ahead to wash a second time...stopping every 15 minutes to rinse again. The second time thru, empty bottles completely and THEN use dry cycle.....remove and bottle. I do this with 33 Oz swing tops attached.....bottling is a snap.

[fuji6100]

I wash my bottles immediatly after drinking the beer, being sure to rinse 4-5 good times with hot tap water, then they immedately go into one of the few buckets of bleach-water I have sitting around. They stay there until bottling day. I take them out of the bleach water, and put them in my dishwasher (I use a large scoop of the dry 1-step sanitizer instead of detergent) and run them on heated dry.

Never had a problem doing it this way.

Of course, since I've switched to kegging, I only bottle a 6 pack from each batch, and i use star san since it keeps an anti-bacterial layer on the surface for about an hour after it's cleaned. You can't say that for sanitizing with heat!

[Magnew]

I do almost the same as fuji6100. I rinse empty bottles and put them into a bucket of bleach solution. When I get 5 or 6 bottles in the bucket, I brush them out, rinse them well, let them dry, and put them back into the case. Then I just pop them into the dishwasher (sans 1-step) on bottling day. I've also never had a problem.

[brewmonkey]

Switch to kegging and no worries about the dishwasher.

[fretlessman71]

When I move back to CO, and we're doing OK financially, and I have room to do a keg system, you can bet that's how I'm going to do it. In the meantime, I'm stuck with bottles.....

[stronk]

I do this and it works everytime. Rinse bottles five times with hot water after using till all the gunk is gone. The day before bottling, fill each bottle with a TBSP of bleach and COLD water...bleach is more effective in cold than hot water. Empty dishwasher, dump bleach down drain before bottling and put bottles in dishwasher with NO SOAP-it creates a film. Lay em sideways so they fill with hot water....stop the dishwasher every 15 minutes and rinse bottles. Stop at the dry stage and move ahead to wash a second time...stopping every 15 minutes to rinse again. The second time thru, empty bottles completely and THEN use dry cycle.....remove and bottle. I do this with 33 Oz swing tops attached.....bottling is a snap.

Now that's dedication! This is the degree of sanitizing pathogenic researchers use...