Bleach

Anything, taken in various doses, can kill you. If you drink too much water in a given period, it will kill you.

The amount of free chlorine in a swimming pool is not enough to kill you. The same thing for what is used in sanitizing beer bottles - but here's the big IF: IF it is mixed correctly to get the right PPM.

The problem with us>funny how no one realizes that chlorine especialy for swimming pools does

Hi, I have given up on sterilizing bottles because of effort to rinse them. I just rinse after use and then again with hot water before i bottle. I have never had a batch go bad so far.

My uncle put me onto this as he brewed in a dirt floor shed and didnt sterilize anything except wash in hot water.

I am always figuring out easier ways so I have just got myself a shower tray and I am planning to get that plastic garden watering system with the black pipe and uprights, drill out the tops so the shoot upwards and then i will be able to rinse all my bottles at one go. That is put the bottles over the uprights and leave hose on for say 1/2 hour

cheers

"Sanitize" not "sterilize." a more important distinction to a microbiologist, or hospital perhaps. Like pyrogen and pathogen. A pathogen is the active microbe, the pyrogen are its remains and byproducts after the microbe is killed. (in simple terms)

I've done that a time or two when drinking beer and bottling at the same time. Rinse the bottle I just poured and refill it.

I don't know about your bottles. I'm using clear glass bottles and notice a haze on the insides of the bottles - particularly those that have been "archived." The sanitizing soak seems to make them sparkle again. Brown or green bottles mask the haze.

No big deal to let the bottles soak for a half hour, fish them out of the bucket and rinse them. You can get an infection in the bottling stage. I've encountered one - open the bottle and it pumps out foam until half the beer is on the counter. Taste was still OK.

Another thing to consider is the type of beer. I like porter and stout and find that dark, high body beers leave more haze in the bottles. Beers that have conditioned longer leave more haze.

Hot water and dishwashing liquid is probably as good as most techniques; certainly better than bleach in my opinion. The "fancy" sanitizing solutions just do the job with a little less effort and at a higher cost.

I do think some of the home brewers on the groups seem too obsessive about sanitization. Perhaps poor sanitization gets blamed for a batch that fails to meet their expectations, irrespective of the real culprit. There are a lot of variables in this game . . .

Some big commercial breweries brew in open air vats with no attempt at airlocks. Tell me the Sam Smith's brewery manages to completely sanitize their slate stone fermenters. Given the 4,000+ years people have brewed beer, sanitization is a relatively new concept. (not arguing against it, just an observation)

Hi

A well known UK actor (I forget which one - Nigel Havers possibly???) nearly died last year doing just that. As I recall, he was performing in a play, was very hot, so drank a lot of water between acts. Eventually, he collapsed, was rushed to hospital and very nearly died.

Regards KGB

Fail to replenish the lost electrolytes and it happens. Firefighters were issued salt tablets for that reason, now they use tablets or premixed electrolyte solutions.

Hi

My wife and I (from the UK) visit the USA Southwest desert States on a regular basis with our tent. We enjoy hiking in the canyons which, of course, get extremely hot. We virtually live on Gatorade whilst over there for that very reason.

Regards

KGB

hi, I use glass beer bottles. Had them for 25 years and they are still good.

I agree that sterilization is overdone, (pardon about that word but its the common word here in most texts) and thats what i was responding to. I do think much home brew I have had of other peoples, i can taste the sodium metb aftertaste thats why i often try to sell the line of just hot water. works for me.

cheers

There is a big mistake in using metabisulphate in brewing beer. This chemical should only be used to inhibit growth of wild yeast and bacteria in WINE must. Al Korzonas points out in his Homebrewing Vol.

1 that bisulphate needs an acidic environment to work. Just rinsing bottles with it does no good at all, and as you discovered, leaves a noticeable and objectionable aftertaste in beer.

I use sodium percarbonate and don't notice any aftertaste at the 2 tbsp/ gallon level. I do have very hard water (liquid rock) and may be experiencing more haze in the bottles because of that.

Never argue with empirical results. If it works keep doing it.

I used to live out there and enjoyed camping in the desert. Believe it or not, the humid Southeast coast is much worse for electrolyte loss. In the desert, if you have enough water you are able to perspire and stay cool (I would be in 100+ degree heat and comfortable). In the Southeast, we get a 100 degree day with 90% humidity and people start dying. Perspiring is useless for keeping cool, so the water loss is greater when the humidity is high.

I remember having to cut away a tree that fell on the house after a hurricane. For about five hours of jacking logs, hauling wood and working a chain saw, I'd drink about a quart of ice water every fifteen minutes, and never had the need to urinate for the entire time!

Hi

I can quite believe that. Apart from visiting the US Southwest, my wife and I have also been to Central America a few times. I feel far more comfortable and "cooler" in dry heat at well over 100 degrees than in the middle of a rainforest at a much lower temperature.

Actually, we haven't been to "proper" US desert for some time now (on our last trip we drove the length of highway 50 in Nevada) so are currently suffering serious withdrawal symptoms!!! To cure this we have recently booked a 4-week vacation for later this year, intending to spend most of it in Utah's Canyonlands with our tent.

To get back on topic - we think Utah is a wonderful place; spoilt only by strange drinking laws. Having said that, we have had some excellent nights out in Utah, most notably "Eddie McStiffs brewpub" in Moab and the "Dead Goat Saloon" in SLC listening to a superb blues band (we nearly missed our flight home the next day; it is amazing how drunk it is possible to get on 2.5% beer if you drink enough of it).

Regards KGB

2.5% Wow, I didn't know they had that. But I guess one just has to drink twice as much.

Here we have one corporation trying to stop a law that would raise our current 6% upper limit. They do sell "fortified wine," and "malt liquor" with >6% in the stores, so I don't see what the ruckus is about (except for the distributor that is afraid of more competition from brew pubs ? or whatever the real agenda is).

The brew pubs like the idea, they have to water the beer if they exceed the limit. Most beers probably fall in the 5% range so a 6% limit is probably low from a brew pub's perspective.

Personally, when beer hits about 8% I lose interest. My all time favorite commercial brew is Samuel Smith's "Taddy's Porter," with Guinness Stout following a close second.

I assume it wrks, not hospitalised yet :-), Wellingtons water where i live is not too bad so we dont have a haze or problems getting suds through bad water.

One of our suburbs doesnt have floridation so always planned to try their water to see if effects the brew, somehow dont thinks so.

Did not know JS comments about sodium MetB, sounds logical but that was all we had before specialist brew shops that was mostly for wine making.

Considering you want to minimize expense and time wasted, and go with the hot water rinse; my best and honest suggestion is rinse bottles thourghly after each use. Immediately, not the next day. Don't let any beer residue dry in the bottle.

Avery

Brew on brother!

let me ofer u a glass of water

ppb is the normal in techical terms. ppm is just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

well, my suggestion is do not wash the same day you bottle.

yes once chlorine is trapped inside a beer bottle it will only go when you suck it down your throat. only 4 or 5 dozen to go, you say.

i default to the non chemical situation. solution.

well, in fact ultraviolet light is used as a sterilizing agent. actually pure oxygen is also used to sterilize.

and the product of both of those, is probably what treats your water in your own home town.

like i said guy. have a drink of water.

unimportant swim pool chemicals are listed as lethal. so is the bleach under your sink.

you wash your beer bottles the day after use. you rinse them the day before you want them you dry them out in the oven

why the chlorine problemo and some idiot thinks glass get brittle. and another thinks, (well, i hope he thinks).

dug88

"dug88" wrote in news:S1pde.1193638$8l.798151@pd7tw1no:

Get a bottle as hot as you can then drop it in ice water and tell me if it breaks, actually, don't, you'll probably make a mess and one thing I can't stand is finding little pieces of glass with my feet for weeks after a breakage.

If you start with a cold oven and leave the bottle to cool before playing with them, there shouldn't be a problem on that front though. If I recall corretly, the thing about brittle bottles was to do with rinsing in hot water imediatly after emptying a fridge temperature bottle. The sudden changes in temp make parts of the bottle expand with heat while other parts don't change and you either get cracks or just hard see fractures that won't be noticed for a few uses.

In theory anyway, I haven't done enough of that to ever see it happen, and I've only bottled two batches since I started this hobby. Got another that desperatly needs to get out of the primary, must be pushing three weeks in there by now. Should have time tomorrow.

peter