Used Wine Bottles Cleaning and sterilizing old wine bottles is not fun. The inside surfaces of dirty wine bottles are an ideal environment for a variety of molds, yeasts and bacteria, and large colonies are often seen growing on the dried residue. Dirty, used, bottles are always a potential source of contamination, so dirty bottles should not be stored in the winemaking area. A safer procedure is to clean the bottles as they are collected. Then the clean bottles should be stored points down in clean cardboard cartons.
Used bottles are difficult to clean properly.
The usual procedure is to soak the dirty bottles in water for a few days. Soaking loosens the dried wine residue and the inevitable mold colonies. Some winemakers add a half-cup of TSP to the water to speed up the soaking process. After soaking, the bottles can be scrubbed with a bottle brush using hot water and a strong phosphate-based detergent. A cup of automatic dishwasher powder in two gallons of hot water makes a good bottle cleaning solution.