What are some effective, cheap, easy ways to clean and re-use bottles?

Question

After a couple year hiatus from home brewing, I'm ready to get back into it and I have been diligently consuming some local microbrews and saving the bottles in preparation. When I brewed before, for me, cleaning and sanitizing the bottles was the most dreadful part of the operation.

In the past, I've used a bottle sprayer, followed by a soak in sanitizing solution, then another spray, but I feel like I spend a lot of time cleaning end up making a mess.

What are effective and easy ways to clean bottles?

I'm not opposed to spending some money if it makes cleaning significantly easier.

Answer 1

For cleaning, I rinse bottles with hot water immediately after pouring them out into my glass. They don't need any sort of washing with soap at that point. I keep them off to the side until I have a whole bunch ready for de-labeling, which is an overnight soak in a sink full of PBW. Most labels just slide right off the next day. A quick rinse and the bottles go on the shelf for later filling.

When it's bottling time, now I just need to sanitize. For that I use a Vinator. It's fast, effective and neat. One or two pumps, and go. I usually sanitize one bottle ahead so I'm filling one while the other drains, sitting on the neck of the Vinator.

You can see me using it in several of my Youtube videos, like this one on bottling from taps (get to 4:25 to see the Vinator in action).

Which segues nicely to to @David PGB's suggestion about kegging. You can keg and still bottle off 6-packs for friends. I've been doing it for years using the method in the video I linked above. I also answered a different homebrew.SE question on the subject and described how to do it on the cheap.

Answer 2

well..... kegging would solve most of the concerns you brought up. I agree with you that bottling can take a big chunk of "brewing time". Kegging is considerably "faster". However if that is not an option to you, I would highly recommend a no-rinse sanitizer such as Iodaphor or star san. Switching to a no rinse sanitizer made a big difference in time for me. I carefully rinse the bottles after using them and flip them upside down to dry. Before bottling, I give them a quick soak in some detergent of some kind (oxiclean), and rinse with hot water. Then I spray sanitizer mixed to the "no-rinse" specifications into the bottles using an avinator. They go directly onto my drying rack and are ready for use in 2 min.