Bottles in Dishwasher
Is it OK to wash my beer bottles in the dishwasher before bottling?
- 4 Replies
Yes, but don’t use soap! Don’t put them in with other dishes either. I make sure my dishwasher is clean and then I put only bottles in with no soap, and I run the dishwasher on the sterilize (heavy) setting. It heats them up enough to be sterile so you don’t even HAVE to use starsan (but I still do sometimes – better safe than sorry).
The sanitize function is what you need to look for. Might be worthwhile to check your dishwasher actually gets hot enough. You can run a load and test with thermometer. But it should be good and no sanitizer needed period. Just like a good boil would kill anything.
I wash bottles with the dishes after use. On bottling day, I put them in the dishwasher, no detergent, sani-rinse on. Then I bottle. They are sanitized by the heat in the dishwasher, making StarSan unnecessary. I’ve done it this way for five years now and it works great.
You’ll still need to cleanse them with PBW/oxyclean to get out debris because the the dishwasher water likely won’t get all the way into them. Before I switched to kegging I just dunked them in a bucket of cleanser, rinsed or used a bottle rinser attachment for my sink, then just used star San in a squeeze bottle. Two or three sprays then let them sit upside down. IMHO it was easier than the dishwasher and saves a lot of water and electricity. You can also get one of these (totally worth it): https://amzn.to/2MxEQIF
Log in to reply.