Beer Forum

BN Army,

I plan on bottling for the first time. I've been saving used (brown) 12oz beer bottles which I plan on using to fill my first brew. To clean, I did my best to rinse immediately after drinking, but I did have a few relapses. To ensure clean bottles, I'm currently soaking them in bleach (it will about a day around 4 CST). I used some ocean breeze clorox bleach instead of non scented. Although not preferred, I don't anticipate a huge issue with a thorough rinse. I've read several sources that recommend to boil water that you plan on rising your bottles with to mitigate chance of micro organisms and other bacteria making its way into the bottle. Is this an issue if I plan on sanitizing my bottles after a though rinse? I was hoping I could simply scrub and rinse thoroughly, then sanitize with StarSan, air dry, and bottle those bad boys.


As always, appreciate your thoughts.

If you are going to use Star San to sanitize, you shouldn't need to boil your rinse water. Star san can sanitize whatever the water leaves behind.

Good Luck!

I've never used bleach to clean, but with a VERY thorough rinse with clean water you should be alright to go to the StarSan. Even if you don't boil the water.

In the future I would get your hands on something like PBW (powdered Brewery wash) or even oxy-clean in a pinch. I would never use a cleaner/sanitizer that could leave a flavor such as chlorine.

Good luck with the first bottles!

If you had a few lapses and had bottles with moldy gunk in the bottom, I'd just throw them out rather than risk it. The bleach will kill stuff good, a thorough rinse with tap water will be fine if you are planning on using star san as your sanitizer. The issue with using bleach, as mentioned above to sanitize is that you don't want bleach residue in your bottles when you fill them with beer, meaning you need to rinse them out after bleaching, and the only way to ensure you aren't reintroducing anything is to use a sterile water rinse. Star san on the other hand sanitizes based on pH, and once you add beer it will raise the pH above the active level, meaning any remaining Star san won't affect your yeast for bottle conditioning, so it's fine to bottle on Star san residue or foam.