Bottle Washer

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mumblecrunch
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Bottle Washer

Post by mumblecrunch » Sat Feb 03, 2018 5:41 pm

I’m not sure if this really qualifies as DIY, but it might be useful to some.

I keg most of my batches but I still bottle some, especially if it’s a style that benefits from bottle conditioning or longer term aging. Or for exchanges.

I’ve got the Mark’s Keg Washer and I love it, but nobody in Canada has brought in the bottle washer attachment. According to Dave@Everwood they’re apparently not a big seller in the States so it’d be a risk to bring them in. Recently Noble Grape started selling a bottle washer, but it’s really just a rinser as it’s only got a garden hose connector. You can crank up the hot water, sure, but you’re not getting PBW or Oxyclean in there. I grabbed one of them during their no-tax sale hoping I could find a way to hook it up to my keg washer pump.

Sure enough, with a 1/2” MPT to 3/4” garden hose brass adapter from Everwood I was set. I also used a bus tray from Costco but a sink would work too. You do have to elevate the bottle rinser above the water level while keeping the pump submerged. A 12-bottle Fastrack was perfect for that. Fastracks were also perfect to drain one set while another set was washing. After that I rinsed them with fresh water from the tap using a regular tap-to-garden hose adapter.

In the end I washed 60+ bottles today without a whole lot of effort.

Notes:
  • Bottles with big collars (e.g., Stillwell, Cantillon, etc.) are a little annoying getting in and out of the holders. They work though.
  • Stubbies “float” because they don’t engage the holders and are thus a little annoying, but they work.
  • Some jets spray off-center so I tended to spend some time rotating them. Still way better than scrubbing.
  • I used the pump that came with my keg washer. You could use any submersible pump as long as there’s an adapter for it to 3/4” Garden Hose.
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oceanic_brew
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Re: Bottle Washer

Post by oceanic_brew » Sun Feb 04, 2018 9:42 am

How much was that ?


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mumblecrunch
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Re: Bottle Washer

Post by mumblecrunch » Sun Feb 04, 2018 12:27 pm

oceanic_brew wrote:
Sun Feb 04, 2018 9:42 am
How much was that ?
  • Keg washer is $160 from Everwood.
  • 1/2" MPT to 3/4" male garden hose adapter isn't on the Everwood website but I'm guessing it was $5 or so.
  • Bottle Washer and 1 Tray is $70 from Noble Grape.
Plus the bus tray and the FastRack I used as a "stand" for the bottle washer. So not "cheap" excepting that I had sunk costs in everything but the Bottle Washer from Noble.

If you don't need the keg washer, a 500-800 gph submersible pump with a 1/2" MPT or other convenient connection is probably going to be <$100. There's this one on Amazon (note that's .com not .ca) for instance. Looks like these are used for hydroponics, so stores of that sort in the area might have something like this available.

If you'd rather build than buy a washing rig, searching "Homebrew Bottle Washer" on Pinterest is probably an excellent place to start.

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Re: Bottle Washer

Post by mumblecrunch » Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:42 pm

And lookie here, the folks who make the FastFerment and FastRacks are putting out a FastWasher.

USD$55 + $10 shipping to Canada is the introductory price for the 12-bottle unit. If you've already got some FastRacks that's all you'd need.

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