Beer Forum

I brought about 2 cases of homebrew (blonde ale, irish red, irish stout) to a party last week, went out of town, and didn't get a chance to clean the empties. When I started in on them this week, I noticed they all had some mold forming on the outside of the bottles (they were closed in a cooler). Is there a way to clean these at an acceptable level? I've rinsed the inside of the bottles and dried them, wiping off all surface mold on the outside. Should I soak them in bleach or PBW? Would that be good enough to not worry about infections in the next batch? Normally I'm really good about keeping my stuff clean. Any tips would be appreciated.

Chunk 'em! It's not worth the effort (or the risk) to clean them. Bottles are cheap.

If you really want to keep them, I would...

1. Soak them in a hot PBW solution
2. Rinse throughly
3. Spray the inside and out with Star San

Elbone wrote:Chunk 'em! It's not worth the effort (or the risk) to clean them. Bottles are cheap.

Um, if your cleaning/sanitizing routine is not good enough to get rid of the mold, you need to do a better job cleaning and sanitizing.