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How to sterilize vials

Liquidex

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In a 30ml plastic bottle :)
Get Shredded!
Oven
Dry heat is less effective than steam for sanitizing and sterilizing, but many brewers use it. The best place to do dry heat sterilization is in your oven. To sterilize an item, refer to the following table for temperatures and times required.

Table 3 - Dry Heat Sterilization

Temperature Duration

338°F (170°C) 60 minutes

320°F (160°C) 120 minutes

302°F (150°C) 150 minutes

284°F (140°C) 180 minutes

250°F (121°C) 12 hours (Overnight)

The times indicated begin when the item has reached the indicated temperature. Although the durations seem long, remember this process kills all microorganisms, not just most as in sanitizing. To be sterilized, items need to be heat-proof at the given temperatures. Glass and metal items are prime candidates for heat sterilization.

Some homebrewers bake their bottles using this method and thus always have a supply of clean sterile bottles. The opening of the bottle can be covered with a piece of aluminum foil prior to heating to prevent contamination after cooling and during storage. They will remain sterile indefinitely if kept wrapped.

One note of caution: bottles made of soda lime glass are much more susceptible to thermal shock and breakage than those made of borosilicate glass and should be heated and cooled slowly (e.g. 5 °F per minute). You can assume all beer bottles are made of soda lime glass and that any glassware that says Pyrex or Kimax is made of borosilicate.


Autoclaves and Pressure Cookers

Typically when we talk about using steam we are referring to the use of an autoclave or pressure cooker. These devices use steam under pressure to sterilize items. Because steam conducts heat more efficiently, the cycle time for such devices is much shorter than when using dry heat. The typical amount of time it takes to sterilize a piece of equipment in an autoclave or pressure cooker is 20 minutes at 257° F (125 °C) at 20 pounds per square inch (psi).

BUY STERILE SEALED VIALS
You can also buy sealed vials and remove the aluminum cap and then use a syringe needle to vent the stopper and fill will a syringe with a 18 or 15g needle Then recap. This is more expensive to do but if you are only doing it at a small scale then this maybe best for you.

Please Vet brewers add Ideas to this thread to help noobs keep there glass vials sterile.
 
Is it enough to do it in sterilizer designed to sterilize bottles for newborns?
 
Is it enough to do it in sterilizer designed to sterilize bottles for newborns?

In my honoest opinion, No. Baby bottle sterilizers kills bacterias that baby's stomach acid cant kill, and leaving anything that may be killed by baby's stomach acid. But sterilizing injectable are TOTALY different story.
 
how can you sterilize rubber stoppers also?

First dip them in 10% bleach, then leanse with 70% rubbing alcohol. Pharmasuitacle companies do it by radio sterilization and dont even have to touch alcohol, but obviously we cant do that unless you have accesse to the nuclear machine.
 
First dip them in 10% bleach, then leanse with 70% rubbing alcohol. Pharmasuitacle companies do it by radio sterilization and dont even have to touch alcohol, but obviously we cant do that unless you have accesse to the nuclear machine.

And they need to dry, it's the process of drying that allows the alcohol to kill the bacteria.
And 70% alcohol is the most effective, that's why it's the most common.
 
would dipping the rubber into 70% alcohol then covering then until dry be effective? Im just trying to figure out all the steps and how to xactly do it.
 
IML Gear Cream!
couldnt you bake the stoppers? at 340 degrees for 1 hour as with the glass weer I dont know that 340 is enough to distort them.
 
What is the best time to sterilize vials?
I mean should I fill vials shortly after sterilization or I can do it much later?
 
THANK YOU for posting this! you on fire with good shit bro! lol now i just need to get everything i need
 
Question... In the Homebrew Walkthrough sticky, his glass isnt covered with anything when he is mixing/stirring/ect.. Should it be covered when heating and mixing the powder with the oil and everything? If so, when stirring, what is the best/safest way of doing this? Is it ok to uncover the glass? if so, how long can it stay uncovered?
 
following this intently as I'm interested in learning more about home brewing. Thanks for posting
 
Quick update.

If you dont have time to wait 2 to 4 hours with 300'F heat, do the following method.

1. Wash ALL the vials with 70% isoprophyl alcohol.

2. In to the oven and set to 550"F and bake for 1 hour.

Its now Hospital grade (usp grade) sterile.

Fairly simple. But if your oven doesnt go this high, just go buy portable one that goes as high temperature.
 
Get Shredded!
That's how I do it. While drying I'm baking my vials
 
this is real good to know cuz I was wondering how I was going to sterilize all my vials. I was gonna soak them in isopropyl alcohol for a few hours but this seems better wont have to rinse or dry out. thx
 
First of all I want to apologize for bumping this thread, I had a lot of questions about this... Obviously best course of action is autoclave, but I don't have the funds or access to one - a tattoo artist buddy said it was out of the question :p

So one piece of advice I got from a friend was "to keep everything sterile to a neurotic level of cleanliness" which to me has led me to thinking about putting a tent in the kitchen or putting up plastic over the windows, doors and ventilation in the kitchen. I later read that for the most part the bacteria I'm the air should not cause problems unless you're an aids patient with cancer and tuberculosis... So instead I am spraying all work surfaces with sanitizer, then covering them with plastic wrap followed by alcohol swab wipe down and I'm hoping this will make a clean enough work space?

Next was problem I really saw was sterilizing the butyl stoppers and vials - because I'm lead to believe that once I open the media bottle for extraction I don't actually need to worry about the air contaminating the brew. That's what the BA is for anyways.

So my set up for vials and stoppers is as such: alcohol wash(should I use 70 instead of 91%?) followed by baking the vials and air drying the stoppers on a clean surface or container(more alcohol wipe down).

Now here's where I'm stuck - I want to wrap the vials in foil before putting them in the oven to keep contaminates out. Does the alcohol need to dry out before I put the foil in? I want to poke the needle through the foil to place the 10cc, would this be a good method? Will the isopropyl alcohol pose any problems if traces get into the brew? I wish I had a rubber stopper for the media bottle too...

Any suggestions? I've been on standby for days trying to get through this part... I've gotten a lot of answers, especially about how to sterilize I just want to make sure I maintain that. I'm wearing hospital gloves hair net mask, plastic and alcohol everywhere but I'm getting kinda OCD here.

Thanks.
 
First of all I want to apologize for bumping this thread, I had a lot of questions about this... Obviously best course of action is autoclave, but I don't have the funds or access to one - a tattoo artist buddy said it was out of the question :p

So one piece of advice I got from a friend was "to keep everything sterile to a neurotic level of cleanliness" which to me has led me to thinking about putting a tent in the kitchen or putting up plastic over the windows, doors and ventilation in the kitchen. I later read that for the most part the bacteria I'm the air should not cause problems unless you're an aids patient with cancer and tuberculosis... So instead I am spraying all work surfaces with sanitizer, then covering them with plastic wrap followed by alcohol swab wipe down and I'm hoping this will make a clean enough work space?

Next was problem I really saw was sterilizing the butyl stoppers and vials - because I'm lead to believe that once I open the media bottle for extraction I don't actually need to worry about the air contaminating the brew. That's what the BA is for anyways.

So my set up for vials and stoppers is as such: alcohol wash(should I use 70 instead of 91%?) followed by baking the vials and air drying the stoppers on a clean surface or container(more alcohol wipe down).

Now here's where I'm stuck - I want to wrap the vials in foil before putting them in the oven to keep contaminates out. Does the alcohol need to dry out before I put the foil in? I want to poke the needle through the foil to place the 10cc, would this be a good method? Will the isopropyl alcohol pose any problems if traces get into the brew? I wish I had a rubber stopper for the media bottle too...

Any suggestions? I've been on standby for days trying to get through this part... I've gotten a lot of answers, especially about how to sterilize I just want to make sure I maintain that. I'm wearing hospital gloves hair net mask, plastic and alcohol everywhere but I'm getting kinda OCD here.

Thanks.


You sound like you're trying to be as clean as physically possible, which is the best route to take in home brewing. Keep this way of thinking up and don't get complacent.
 
He got neg repped to death.
 
I my self have used a pressure cooker (same kind mom use to use to can vegatables ) with distilled water and let it cook for 2 hours. Put aluminum foil over the open end of the vials and let the pressure get as high as it will go. Essentially using the pressure cooker as an auto clave
 
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