Betadine discontinued: UK replacement for sanitizing brewing

What's wrong with sodium metabisulphite?

I'm pretty sure I used to nick the Milton, in the days of nappy buckets.

You have to rinse it off thoroughly. OTOH, you can soak clean equipment in the right dilution of Betadine for a few minutes, let it drip for a few minutes, & use it that way --- it's a lot easier.

Try "StarSan", it's a US product. I can't recall where I got mine, but GIYF.

I did try an iodine-based one, but it left a taste behind - ruined 45 bottles of beer :(

I only use it for bottling. For sanitising demijohns, fermenting buckets etc, I use the powder chlorine stuff (WPP IIRC).

It's not "no rinse". Because I bottle my beer, trying to sanitise 45 bottles, and then rinse them is a PITA. Then I read in a forum about no- rinsing, and a bottle-washing pump. You fill the pumps bowl with 500ml of no-rinse sanitiser (StarSan), and press the bottle down onto a spout which sprays the inside. Leave to dry, bottle. Been doing this for over a year now, and it's perfect.

Ah, here's the badger ...

Same here.

I happen to have a drawer from an older freezer whose holes are perfectly suited to holding upside-down beer bottles without touching the inside or the lip. For rinsing, I brought one of these from the US, then had to make my own adapter to fit it on a British garden tap.

But after using no-rinse Betadine solutions, I don't want to go back to rinsing even the other equipment, never mind the bottles. I'll look up StarSan --- thanks for the tip!

What's wrong with using a dishwasher? Surely a non-eco one will get up the temperatures required for sterilising?

Technically, it's not sterilising, it's "sanitising".

Fitting 45 500ml bottles in a dishwasher in one go ....

...& the shortest programme on mine takes 45 minutes.

And I thought that brewing was a slow process!

I think mine might just take 45 x 500ml bottles, certainly in 2 batches!

I take it you put them in upside down? Each on one of the tines, f'rinstance?

How can you be sure that will get enough water in through the narrow opening to wash them out properly?

A trace of sod.meta. is surely fairly harmless though - it's a permitted food preservative, aka E223. Granted you don't want to nuke the yeast, but the same must apply to betadine.

Oven bake at a bit over 100C? Slow heat and slow cool to avoid cracking the glass.

OK it's not fast, but it's low hassle.

Tim Watts wrote in news:318v3b-bo3.ln1 @squidward.local.dionic.net:

I have heard that repeated baking will stress the glass. It's low hassle until all your bottles explode under low pressure.

Back to the original question: StarSan is a good, no rinse sanitizer. I don't know how hard it is to get in the UK.

I've never bothered with sanitisers at all with my brewing using plastic barrel fermenters, just wash them out well with cold water using a plastic sponge to rub the grunge off and being very careful to only use the sponge for that and throw it out and get a new one when when its getting a bit well used. Never had any infected batches.

Don’t do wine tho.

I use the dishwasher for my glass bottles. Both what we call stubbys, 375 ml and longnecks, 750ml. Works fine.

With the 750ml PETS I use a little non scented bleach in the bottom, fill with water, let it stand overnight, rinse well with cold tap water. You do have to be careful to rinse well otherwise you can kill the secondary fermentation and end up with flat beer.

And? This *is* a UK group. The one I'm reading is, anyway. We don't normally do fizzy beer.