This question was submitted from Ray
“How should I clean used wine bottles and make them odor free? ”
Try these techniques:
- Used wine bottles can be cleaned using regular dish soap and hot water. If you don’t have a bottle brush, soak the bottles for a while before washing. You may want to soak in hot water anyway if you want to remove the labels, if you plan to re-use the bottles.
- If you are planning to re-use after washing, wash in a disinfectant solution. (1 part chlorine bleach 4 parts water) Fill your sink with the solution and let the bottles soak for at least ten minutes for best results and be sure to rinse well with hot water after disinfected.
- If you have a bottle which has a stubborn odor try using an enzyme based cleaning solution and soak it for 1/2 hour to one hour to really let the enzyme work at breaking down the organic material and rinse well with hot water.
- Many micro-breweries have a special disinfecting bottle baths available to you when you come into bottle your home brew at the micro-brewery, so you would just have to clean the bottles before coming in to bottle your wine. That is assuming that the reason you are cleaning your used wine bottles is for that purpose.
