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Question: How can i sterilize old wine bottles to make them suitable for bottling wine ?

(Posted by: the asker on 2010-07-27 07:28:45)

Posted by: Katie on 2010-07-27, 13:02:43

To reuse your wine bottles, you must first scrub and wash them out like you do when your washing dishes. Wash them in dish soap or mild detergent to clean out any old wine residue then carefully rinse them out, making sure to wash off all of the soap or detergent. It's easier to wash your wine bottles right after you empty them and finish drinking from them to prevent any leftover wine, residue, or dust from hardening in the bottle. Once the bottle is cleaned out, it good to sanitize the bottles by soaking them in a mild bleach solution or in an oxygen based sanitizer product. You can purchase wine bottle sanitizer products from online wine making stores like homebrewit.com.

Posted by: John B on 2010-07-27, 07:31:27

Boil them. Running them through the dishwasher might be good enough -- the dishwasher is like a home autoclave, the piece of equipment used for sterilizing lab and medical equipment.

Posted by: oikos on 2010-07-27, 07:36:36

Dishwashers won't work; the necks are too small to get water into the bottles. Actually, you don't need to sterilize, just sanitize. When I get new (to me) bottles, I start with a soak overnight in a mix of bleach and TSP in hot water. The labels usually fall off and internal crud is loosened or floated out. Scrub with a bottle brush. Then triple-rinse. I may or may not follow that with a rinse with a sanitizer like One Step. If I have emptied the bottle, I immediately rinse it out before setting it aside for sanitizing and just use the One Step on those.

Posted by: GibsonEssGee on 2010-07-27, 07:56:09

Use sodium metabisulphite. It's available from most home brew suppliers.

Posted by: dogglebe on 2010-07-27, 13:23:20

Mix a gallon of warm water with a tablespoon of potassium metabisulphite. This is the standard solution for winemaking. Don't rinse the bottles. It'll help the wine.