steam cleaning bottles

[jerry]

Years ago I worked for an enzyme blending company. Before we bottled the product we would steam clean the plastic bottles. The same way you would wash bottles using the high pressure wash that attachés to your faucet, but in this case it would be steam, not water.


I wonder if anyone uses steam. It would cut down on water and the bottles would be sanitized by the steam. Also, maybe cleanser wouldn't be needed.

 

[Wade E]

Sounds like a good idea to me, do you have a good idea for this kind of rocess.

 

[smokegrub]

I have not used steam to clean/disinfect bottles nor would I recommend doing so. Steam, in my experience, is very dangerous and easily cause serious burns. I will stick with hand washing mine well to remove all visible crud. A subsequent cycle through the dishwasher has met my needs.

 

[jerry]

No ideas yet, it shouldn't be to hard to figure something out. You would have to be careful and probably will have to wear gloves. It would definitely save a lot on the water bill.

 

[ASAI]

I've been waiting to post my system on bottle washing for comments. I have only bottled one batch, using new bottles. I washed(Rinsed) in one-step, then put in the dishwasher with K-Met on the pre wash cycle; the double wash cycles and rinse would all then be with hot water at about 180F.I doubt thatwater got into the bottles well enough to rinse, figure the SO2 and heat will do a good job. The next batch will be mostly recycles, that I soaked and washed in the sink with dish washing detergent. I plan on going through the same process before next bottling. I noted from a post a long time ago, dishwashers are dangereous because of food particle contamination. I don't use my dish washer for cleaning dishes just for sanitizing before putting away.

 

[grapeman]

Jerry that may work with a very cheap source of steam, but I have a feeling it would cost much more in energy ependiture than would be saved in water costs. It sounds to me like spending $6.00 a gallon in energy expenditures to produce a gallon of ethanol to sell for $5.00 a gallon.......

 

[PeterZ]

"It sounds to me like spending $6.00 a gallon in energy expenditures to produce a gallon of ethanol to sell for $5.00 a gallon....... "


Yes, that is rather silly. Especially considering that ethanol only has 60% of the energy of gasoline on a vol:vol basis. When they went to universal 10% ethanol in gasoline I lost over 1 mpg average in my car.

 

[MrCheese]

I picked up a little hand held steam cleaner on Ebay. Works great.