Former home brewers unite!

Talk to this guy!?

Classified said :

Jim Jones said :

Dishwasher takes all the pain away from cleaning bottles.

I’m paranoid about the dishwasher not getting right up inside them, so I tend to do a couple of rinses by hand as soon as I empty them. Then, when I’m ready to clean them for bottling do a manual soap followed by several rinses, then sterilise followed by several rinses again. Takes a while, but I’ve never had one go bad.

My bro-in-law had a good idea – he built a ‘tree’ from inground watering system parts, and he puts the bottles upside down over the ‘branches’, and attaches the rig to a tap. Water sprays up inside the bottles. We need to figure out how to add a small stream of detergent, then it will be perfect.

You can buy detergent emulsifyers, not sure if there are any food grade ones though. I have a “kero gun” I use for degreasing things. The air travelling past creates a vaccum causing the degreaser to spray out the end. Same on my pressure washer but the pressurised water does the trick.

Alternatively, you could rig up some sort of in line jugger that you could use a mix of detergent in & once it is gone the fresh water just flushes though.

To the OP, I have heaps but they are not up for grabs sorry. I do have quite a few stubbies if interested. All clean.

Jim Jones said :

Dishwasher takes all the pain away from cleaning bottles.

I’m paranoid about the dishwasher not getting right up inside them, so I tend to do a couple of rinses by hand as soon as I empty them. Then, when I’m ready to clean them for bottling do a manual soap followed by several rinses, then sterilise followed by several rinses again. Takes a while, but I’ve never had one go bad.

My bro-in-law had a good idea – he built a ‘tree’ from inground watering system parts, and he puts the bottles upside down over the ‘branches’, and attaches the rig to a tap. Water sprays up inside the bottles. We need to figure out how to add a small stream of detergent, then it will be perfect.

Classified said :

Jim Jones said :

You should be able to buy new bottles at either Brew Your Own (Shop 2 Primmer Court, Kambah Village – http://www.brewyourown.com.au/) or Butts and Brew (Kaleen Village Georgina Crs, Kaleen – I’d suggest picking up some nice cigars while you’re there).

Or you can pick up a couple of slabs of a decent beer in longnecks (Coopers ain’t too shabby and the bottles are easy to clean) and use it as an excuse to drink.

+1 from me. I used both approaches to build a collection of about 200 longnecks that I use for home brewing.

I find the trick is to clean them as you use them, as this makes it much easier to clean/sterilise them when bottling.

Dishwasher takes all the pain away from cleaning bottles.

Jim Jones said :

You should be able to buy new bottles at either Brew Your Own (Shop 2 Primmer Court, Kambah Village – http://www.brewyourown.com.au/) or Butts and Brew (Kaleen Village Georgina Crs, Kaleen – I’d suggest picking up some nice cigars while you’re there).

Or you can pick up a couple of slabs of a decent beer in longnecks (Coopers ain’t too shabby and the bottles are easy to clean) and use it as an excuse to drink.

+1 from me. I used both approaches to build a collection of about 200 longnecks that I use for home brewing.

I find the trick is to clean them as you use them, as this makes it much easier to clean/sterilise them when bottling.

Jim Jones said :

Or you can pick up a couple of slabs of a decent beer in longnecks (Coopers ain’t too shabby and the bottles are easy to clean) and use it as an excuse to drink.

+1 to using Coopers bottles. The main difference I find between their bottles, and most of the other commercial long necks, is that they use a thicker glass. Means that they’re a lot more durable than a lot of other bottles, and less likely to break when capping / cleaning etc.

Let me have a look when I get home tonight too, I probably have some surplus that I can give you (with the upside of making my wife happy when I clear up a bit of room in the shed 😉

Brew Your Own At Home, in Kambah, may be able to help. No affililation other than a long term happy customer.
The recycling centres at the landfills or the town centres generally have some. At the town centres, the usual caution about broken glass applies.
You could post a WTB on the Aussie Home Brewer forums.
Unfortunately, I gifted my 750ml bottles some time ago, and now only have kegs and a small number of 500ml bottles.

Try a dumpster behind one of the German, Austrian, Polish etc. clubs. Lots of solid 500ml bottles to be had.

You should be able to buy new bottles at either Brew Your Own (Shop 2 Primmer Court, Kambah Village – http://www.brewyourown.com.au/) or Butts and Brew (Kaleen Village Georgina Crs, Kaleen – I’d suggest picking up some nice cigars while you’re there).

Or you can pick up a couple of slabs of a decent beer in longnecks (Coopers ain’t too shabby and the bottles are easy to clean) and use it as an excuse to drink.

try here

http://www.brewyourown.com.au/