Dishwasher sanitizing question...

[ChrisNH]

I have been using my dishwasher to sanitize. Its very convenient.. except for the part where it needs to be empty of dishes since the last run. The wife just doesn't understand why I freak if a dish goes in before i use it for bottles and why "I just don't use soap".

Anyway.. I have been using the "heat dry" setting which turns on the element and generates lots of steam. So far I have not had any issues in my limited homebrewing experience since I have owned a dishwasher. The top rack is especially handy since I can stick the bottles through the mesh. The bottom they have to kinda rattle around on the tines.

I DO completely clean bottles with a soak in cleaner and subsequent bottle blast before being loaded.

One word of warning.. I had one case where the soap puck hadn't completely dissolved in the last regular wash. Check the soap thing before you use it to make sure it got completely cleared out!

Chris

[Quin]

When I was bottling, I would rinse the yeast sediment after pouring each bottle and fill with water to soak for a while. It was convenient to keep up with how many beers you had drank at one time. I would then load the bottles into the dishwasher and wash with the regular dishes using Cascade (which is similar to PBW). I'd stockpile the cleaned bottles until bottling day.

On bottling day I would re-run 2 cases of bottles through the dishwasher on the steam cycle with no soap.