A couple of cases of old bottles

[jholmgren]

Along with the V80 I recently purchased, I received two wooden cases filled with the 6.5 oz bottles.   I wasn't really all that interested in them, but I guess they'll make nice decoration and the lady gave them to me.  The wooden cases are in pretty poor shape cosmetically, but they are solid so I'll probably leave them as-is.  

My question is - what to do with the bottles?   I know virtually nothing about old coke bottles, although I understand there is a community of coke bottle collectors, it's not really my thing.  

Is it OK to wash them and clean them up for display, or is there some value to the 'patina' (or, dirt if you want to be honest) that is on them?

Thanks!
Jim

[davethebirdman]

Stick them in the dishwasher a couple of times and re-use them...
Buy yourself a capper from a homebrew store and top them up with the 2 litre bottles of coke.

[jholmgren]

Stick them in the dishwasher a couple of times and re-use them...
Buy yourself a capper from a homebrew store and top them up with the 2 litre bottles of coke.

Cheers Dave - that is an EXCELLENT idea!  There is a home brew store not 10 minutes from my house!   

[briandr1]

I would boil the bottles first then thru the dishwasher a cpl times to insure you steralize them.

[Creighton]

They will have sanitizer and a bottle brush at the home brew. If there is nasty build up a soak in toliet bowl cleaner first helps. Nasty stuff eye protection and gloves.
Carefull with the dishwasher. Not sure it will get the insides clean and the heat may break the bottles. Let us know how it goes.
Creighton

[jholmgren]

They will have sanitizer and a bottle brush at the home brew. If there is nasty build up a soak in toliet bowl cleaner first helps. Nasty stuff eye protection and gloves.
Carefull with the dishwasher. Not sure it will get the insides clean and the heat may break the bottles. Let us know how it goes.
Creighton

I have some sanitizer and a bottle brush for my home brew ( root beer) kit, so after a spin in the dishwasher I will sanitize them and wash again.  I have a dishwasher that does not use a heating coil so I'm not too worried about running them through it.

[Creighton]

Good deal!! Broke some bottles in my dishwasher. Hell of a mess :-)
Creighton

[mznb1u]

See this post for everything that you will need to clean and re-fill bottles.  Bleach is the best sanitizer and it is cheap!

http://soda-machines.com/discussions/index.php/topic,8738.0.html

  Tim