[lupester]

For those who bottle in a commercial settling and let's say over a 1000 jars a year, how do you sanitize your jars before bottling? I picked up some stuff called sanstar from the brew supply house that is supposed to work well.

 

[deknow]

New jars from a reputable source should be ready for bottling.
Used jars need to be cleaned and sanitized (either heat or in a 3 bay sink with wash,rinse,sanitize with bleach as the Sanitizer.

Deknow

 

[Tenbears]

Sanitize and disinfect are two different thing, sanitize means to make clean. Disinfect is to remove infectious material sanitizing is all that is needed. Wash thoroughly with soap and hot water. Ours go through a dishwasher new or reused, we Only reuse glass!

 

[BMAC]

Sanstar is a non rinse sanitizer that works wonderfully. We only use new and don't worry about it.

 

[deknow]

Anything that requires being washed with soap and water, in a food service or food packaging environment, will require sanitizing by any health code I'm aware of.

The 3 bay sink is the standard way...wash, rinse, and then a final rinse in a weak bleach solution (use a ph test strip to verify proper concentration...not too weak, and not strong enough to leave a smell or taste...remember, this bleach is the final rinse).

Sanitizing can be done with heat, but I know at least one longtime beekeeper who was told by his local health dept that his sanitizer (which was old..something his father used I think) didn't get hot enough to meet code.

Anyone who is going to be packaging food on a large scale should probably (and probably is required in one way or another) to get servesafe certification, which covers most of this kind of thing.

With all that said, of all the foods one can package, honey is lowest risk of all.

deknow

 

[lupester]

The jars I am using are new. For example muth jars from Blue sky. They are packaged in boxes but I wouldn't say they are "Sealed". So dirt, dust etc could get in them during shipping. Also, i have contacted glass companies about getting pallets of glass but they say they are not certified to be filled immediately. Their facilities are "food safe" but cardboard particles could make their way into the jars.

 

[KQ6AR]

I'm wondering if the corks in moth jars can be sanitized, They do absorb a little, & are porous.
All I can think of that uses cork, is wine.

 

[Michael Bush]

>All I can think of that uses cork, is wine.

And both wine and honey are acidic, antimicrobial and to some degree or another fermented...