Homebrewing Blog and Resource

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Equipment to Dry Bottles In the Best Way Possible

Since I have been homebrewing for almost 9 years now, I should have a piece of equipment that helps dry bottles where they are in a position to drain out.

I notice that even after my best rinsing if the bottle is left to dry standing upright, many times there will be a little bit of liquid left to dry in the bottom of the bottle.

When I go to start the bottling process, I will angle bottles towards a light and look into them to see how clean they are.  More times than not, I see a little bit of film staring back at me.  Most times after a quick rinse, the film is gone.

The thing is: if the bottle had dried upside down or at least at an angle so that the remaining liquid could run out, then there would be no residue to deal with when I was getting bottles ready.

I have seen bottle trees and they seem to work ok.  I think you have to be careful how you place bottles on them since too many on one side may not be a good thing from a balance perspective.  Also, they appear to take up too much space with all the bottle hanging on it at those angles

Besides that, they look like an accident waiting to happen.  Reflecting on this topic as I write this post, the main reason I never bought a bottle tree is due to the small children I have running around this house I live in.

(I am not sure where I came to collect these children – as time goes on, you just gather more stuff, I guess)

Storing bottles in boxes was always a better option than a tree.  The boxes were stackable and rectangle shaped which made it easy for me to find a place for them that was out of the way.

A new piece of equipment I have seen in the catalogs and online is the FastRack.  The concept is simple enough. The rack are plastic and allow bottles to be stored upside down and each rack can be stacked on top of each other.  The website has some fun videos to demonstrate how stable the racks are once they are stacked.  Even with a few kicks, the bottles didn’t fall over.

I think  the true test would be my small children test to see what kind of mess they could make but I don’t think I will let them try it out.  As long as they couldn’t knock it over accidentally, that’s all I need to know.

Until I start kegging full time, this new kind of bottle drying equipment might be a good short term investment.

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2 Comments

  1. Ricardo Leather

    Is there a reason you can’t use your oven to dry and sterlize the bottles?

  2. No, there is no reason you can’t. I have never done that since mostly because I am sure I would break some bottles in the process. Without a rack, it would take me a few times to get through all the bottles I would need for 5 gallons.

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