Do you sanitize your bottle caps ?

[tcbeer1]

If so, how? Chemical Spray? Ozone? Ultra Violet?
Caps are the only thing we don't sanitize before use and I can't stand it !
I would like to stay away from Chemical Spray if possible.
The cap hopper is more or less cast pot metal and will rust very easily so, soaking the caps would not be good.

Any help will be greatly appreciated

Thanks
Tom

[gabewilson50]

I found that spraying the underside of the caps with ethanol worked for me, and I would repeat that on a larger scale in the future. It's fairly non-corrosive and it quickly evaporates off of unused caps so you don't get rust spots for the next bottling day.

[gitchegumee]

We used Oxine spray through a mister to fog the bottom side of the crowns as they descended down the hopper chute. Very effective. Don't know how you'd do it without chemicals. Residence time is a factor on any kill method and the crowns are in the chute a very short time. Good luck.

[LuskusDelph]

A mist of Ethanol sounds like a good solution... unless you happen to be using oxygen absorbing caps, in which case it seems you would be rendering them ineffective by getting them wet (or so I have been told).

[dick murton]

The manufacturing process ensures they are sterile immediately after they have been produced, and as far as I know, even when sterile filling, the caps are not sterilised again at the bottling line.

If in the UK at least, you would run into horrific problems with the excise authorities using alcohol pure enough to use for sterilisation, and the costs of the alcohol (even without any form of duty) wouldn't bear thinking about.

I have heard of UV light being trialled, but am not sure how effective this really proved - and of course - you have to keep this well separated from the beer

[dick murton]

Forgot to add - the point is about unsterile caps - they are more often than not contaminated by handling within the brewery / packaging area, and are not contaminated with beer spoilage organisms as supplied

Cheers

[Sulfur]

If in the UK at least, you would run into horrific problems with the excise authorities using alcohol pure enough to use for sterilisation, and the costs of the alcohol (even without any form of duty) wouldn't bear thinking about.

I wouldn't use pure alcohol. Just go to the supermarket and buy a bottle of rubbing alcohol (70%). Cheap and effective and evaporates fast.

[gitchegumee]

Our crowns were misted in the chute--after the hopper and sorter. Never had a feeding problem, and the mist was directly aimed at the seal of the crown, not the other side of it. We threw away the few wet crowns in the feeder and kept our stock dry and covered in a clean place. In a hot, humid environment we had wet crowns on our cold bottled beer no matter what. Never rust. I agree that crown sterilization is overkill, but we gave it all we had--we were bottling a sterile-filtered product. And doing it well. We had very low counts in our product. Lactobacillus was not our friend.