Bottle Cleaning with Oxyclean

[wineforfun]

I have my bottles soaking in Oxy solution. I did not put any in the inside of the bottles as I wasn't sure. Do you put it in the bottle too or just on the outside to remove the label? I was just going to rinse the inside with warm/hot water to remove any old wine residue that may be left over.
Thanks.

 

[dangerdave]

I soak my used bottles (inside and out) in a large tub of Oxyclean mixture, so that they stay totally submerged, 24 at a time. If I leave them for a few days, most labels come off easily. I use a drill mounted plastic bottle brush with felt brushes that really does the job inside the bottles with my 18v drill. If there is label residue on the outside, I scrape clean with a sharp knife, and finish with a Scotch Brite pad. A thorough rince under very hot water (ouch!) and onto the drying rack. I keep most on a shelf or back in their original cases until bottling. I use the simple plastic thingy (from berl's post above) to flush them with sanitzer at bottling time.

Bottle washing and delabelling is the only drag in this hobby, IMO. Some of the labels float right off after a few days (yeah!), while others must be scraped off with all your might (boo!). After a year, having cleaned/delabelled many hundreds of used bottles, I have only tossed one because it gave me too much grief. I hated that bottle!

 

[olusteebus]

I forgot to add that I use a spray bottle and spray a good amount of Starsan in each bottle to get the inside wet. Then pour it out and place upside down in a sanitized plastic storage bin laying at such an angle so that the bottle neck stays down. When I get 25 or 30 bottles in it, I can lay it flat.

 

[robie]

I have found that if left too long, oxyclean can leave a film on the inside of bottles and it's really hard to get out. That's why I try not to let oxyclean set in the bottles for very long.

But sometimes one has those really stubborn spots that don't leave one with much choice but to soak it.

I learned the hard way about dried wine spots, so now I always double rinse my bottles as soon as I finish drinking their wine. I have enough bottles now that I don't save any new ones, I just recycle what I have.

 

[wineforfun]

Thanks, I got about 20 of them clean. I kept the Oxy solution on the outside and just put warm water on the inside while letting them set. After 30min. half of them had the labels fall off, the other half had to sit overnight. I just triple rinsed the insides with hot water and turned upside down to dry.
Why all the inside of the bottle sanitizing such as Starsan, oxy, etc.? I would think a few good rinses with hot water would do the trick, no?

 

[dangerdave]

The active ingredients in those cleasers are designed to bond with the organic molecules of the wine and help lift them from the glass.

 

[robie]

Thanks, I got about 20 of them clean. I kept the Oxy solution on the outside and just put warm water on the inside while letting them set. After 30min. half of them had the labels fall off, the other half had to sit overnight. I just triple rinsed the insides with hot water and turned upside down to dry.
Why all the inside of the bottle sanitizing such as Starsan, oxy, etc.? I would think a few good rinses with hot water would do the trick, no?

Just before one fills a bottle with wine, which in some cases, will be in there for years, one should always sanitize that bottle. Kmeta is the better choice; StaSan also is a good sanitizer; straight oxyclean is not a sanitizer, but only a cleaner. Don't take a chance of your wine spoiling, after all the effort and cost to make it.

 

[wineforfun]

Thanks for the info. First bottling attempt this weekend.