sterilizing bottle question

[buzzingtalk]

Hey I have some 500ml sloe gin bottles that I need to sterilize, but they have rubber/plastic on the seal bit at the top so I am wary of putting it in the oven as people have said the lid has been ruined...so how can I sterilize them? I don't have a dishwasher either. And if I was going to make a big batch in a plastic bottle ( like I've seen on Two_Sheds flickr) do you need to sterlize plastic bottles, and how do you do it??

These are the bottles I have...

Preserving Bottles - Lakeland, the home of creative kitchenware

[chris]

We boiled them if i remember correctly when we made presents a few years ago... Or you can buy something like milton solution?

[binley100]

I use some sterilising powder for wine making equipment.........

[buzzingtalk]

Exellent - apparently they sell Milton powder in Boots in the baby section, so will grab some of that

[rustylady]

Exellent - apparently they sell Milton powder in Boots in the baby section, so will grab some of that

I use the Milton tablets, available from Tesco, Asda etc (baby section) - they are probably cheaper than Boots.

[Hilary B]

I have always reckoned that if glassware is really thoroughly washed, and rinsed with boiling water, it is pretty effective. If you are putting something in it with a high sugar-and-alcohol content, any further sterlizing is probably unnecessary.
Plastic might be trickier, if you aren't satisfied with it LOOKING really clean, use the Milton!

[buzzingtalk]

Surely if you pour boiling water on glass it breaks though? Or thats what I was told at school.

I couldn't care less about it looking clean - so guess Milton is OK.

Thanks Hilary B for all your alcohol related answers this morning *slurp*

[Two_Sheds]

I use own-brand sterilising tablets from the baby section too

[Hilary B]

I've washed a fair number of wine bottles and demijohns, finishing with a boiling-water rinse, and never had one break yet. What breaks glass is sudden COOLING.
I detest the metabisulphite (similar to campden tablets, might be the same stuff) sold for wine-making sterilizing, so I always used boiling water rinse as the last stage. It's safer if the washing water was fairly hot before the rinse, but the only breakages I've ever had were from dropping, or putting a hot bottle on a cold wet surface.

[Two_Sheds]

.... but of course you can't use boiling water on plastic bottles

[binley100]

One of my glass kilner jars had a boiling hot rinse and the bottom fell off

[danmon_81]

^^^ Snap done it with a few now...and i've had plastic bottles melt.....i some time use boiled kettle water 3 mins after its boiled

[rustylady]

I won't risk boiling water on either glass or plastic, so I give everything a good wash in hot water with washing up liquid, and then immerse in Milton solution.

[Liza]

Milton or equivalent and a good rinse after