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How are you cleaning bottles


Lorenzo

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Hey everyone,

looking at several processes to clean bottles before filling slowest but most economical way is to sparse with either Co2 or Argon gas, the latter cost more but have been told it does a better job. Water and drying on a rack or tree is an option but more time consuming. Anyone doing the gas method.

Thanks, Lorenzo

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Most glass always has some kind of particles in it. (dust, bits of cardboard, dirt, residue from the manufacturing process.

I use GNS to rinse the bottles at the same proof as the spirit we are bottling. The removes all of the above

TCW equipment makes some great affordable, semi auto rinsers.

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Kris,

Are you like pumping the GNS into the bottles, using your filler for a few seconds or what ? I looked at TCW system, has a tank for I assume water, and a filter mounted to its stand, just a little out of my price range right now, I've been thinking about straight CO2 hooked up to a typical air nozzle with at least a 1/4 inch by 10 inch copper or ss tube sort of like an ice maker line.

After some experimenting not sure if its just scattering about the dust and micro debris.if I remember my chemistry Argon is heavier and may make a difference but cost is nearly 3 times

LOR

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Using GNS over the type of spirit being bottled saves us a bit of money on spirits. Using GNS also allows us to leave the rinser assembled and full, with out having to tear it apart and clean it after every bottling.

@Lorenzo The TCW rinser has a timer on it bottles are placed on the rinser neck down over the spouts and the bottles are rinsed for a few seconds. We rinse with GNS at the same proof of the spirit we are bottling. I would not reccomend rinsing with water as residual water in the bottle will reduce the proof of your spirits. Ive seen other folks purge their bottles with just compressed air or Co2 but this does not always completely clean out the bottle

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  • 1 month later...

We rinse with the product we are bottling with.  We fill the bottle about half way up and dump it back into the drum we are pulling from.  It passes back through the particulate filter back into our bottler.  The bottles we are using are only slightly dusty from the cardboard boxes they come in.  It work for us and we bottle by hand with a TCW 6 spigot gravity wine bottler.  Bottles on filler take off and dump and put back on filler. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

We rinse our bottles on a custom made bottle wash with spirits. The spirits are run a particulate filter and after about 1,200 bottles the filter and spirits are changed.  The filter is filthy with a gray tint  just after 1,200 bottles.  I'm not sure how clean bottles are from other manufactures but ours are from China.  The last thing I would do would be to put the spirits back into the bottling drum.  We also wash the outside of the bottles with a vinegar solution.

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Somewhat different but shown for info only, I built a semi automatic filler for our carbonated cider production.

 

The bottle is gripped, inverted and rinsed.  Here I used chlorine dioxide which is great as a sterilant leaves no taint.

 

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The top is a sink cutout from a Corian countertop.

Chafing Dish

1/2" copper pipe and fittings.

3/8" stainless pipe uprights.  We crimped the tops with a large drill chuck.

We brazed the copper to stainless but would recommend compression fittings instead.

Mash pump from More Beer.

Quick connect fittings. Helps to burp pump for priming and cleaning.

We don't seem to use the valve ever.

10" filter from Home Depot

In the back ground we have some racks from Costco these have been fantastic for drying. I can get 120 bottles per shelf and the neck of the bottle fits nicely in the 2: mesh hole.

We use 15% alcohol solution for rinsing.

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  • 2 months later...
On 1/20/2019 at 10:10 AM, Grant said:

The top is a sink cutout from a Corian countertop.

Chafing Dish

1/2" copper pipe and fittings.

3/8" stainless pipe uprights.  We crimped the tops with a large drill chuck.

We brazed the copper to stainless but would recommend compression fittings instead.

Mash pump from More Beer.

Quick connect fittings. Helps to burp pump for priming and cleaning.

We don't seem to use the valve ever.

10" filter from Home Depot

In the back ground we have some racks from Costco these have been fantastic for drying. I can get 120 bottles per shelf and the neck of the bottle fits nicely in the 2: mesh hole.

We use 15% alcohol solution for rinsing.

Grant, 

thank you for posting these steps you took to rinse bottles. I am going to use your idea! actually im almost done. i was curious if you could elaborate a little bit about the corian cut out? im trying to get the same thing and all i can find is cutting board material (hdpe). did you glue that together or is it a custom thing from corian? thanks again!

Austin

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The best to do would to get a hold of an Corian installer and ask for a cut out from a kitchen sink.  We just used CA glue (super glue) to put it together.  I'm finding the legs to be unnecessary, may be just glue some tabs on the bottom to keep it in place over the chafing dish. The border on top helps a lot with collecting spillage and is just strips of Corian run through the table saw and had the edge rounded over with an 1/8" router bit.

 

Good luck

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RUM,   I have been looking at the same bottle rinser, haven't received a call back from CCR, Question, what is the compressed gas u are using and how big is the recommended 30 gallon tank, oh and approximate cost for the gas? 

Thanks, L

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9 hours ago, richard1 said:

Word of caution, that air is not 100% oil free.  Rather add in coalescing filters to accompay the installation.  This way you have a lot more security built in.

Thanks. Good point. We have filters in the system. Should have mentioned that.

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