Vinator Bottle Rinser Review
Bottling is honestly one of the worst parts of brewing. The Vinator bottle rinser or sulfiter is the easiest way to sanitize bottles before bottling. Essentially it is a spring loaded pump that pushes sanitizer into a bottle as you press down. Throw in a fastrack bottle dryer and you’ll greatly speed up bottling.
The first few times I brewed I had a funnel and just poured Star San bottle to bottle. It did the job with no infections but it was tedious. I wasted a lot of sanitizer and it was just so dang slow. Bottling really is almost bad enough to make you give up homebrewing! Any tool you can get to speed things up is really worth it.
Build quality is really nice on this bottle rinser. The plastic is sturdy and not brittle. The metal spring appears to be stainless steel and has held up well to several bottling sessions. There really is no need to clean it as you are using sanitizer but it does fully disassemble for drying.
The Vinator bottle rinser is a simple plastic bowl that attaches to a spring-loaded pump. You screw the pump into the base and set it in the bowl. The bowl holds quite a bit of sanitizer but only about half full is required for proper sanitizing. The bowl doubles as a nice place to sanitize caps as well. All you have to do is press a bottle onto the sprayer and let the excess drain out. The liquid easily hits the whole bottle with just a press or two. I’ve mainly bottled with 12oz long neck bottles but I’ve tested both bombers and 750ml bottles with success. Mead is catching my attention so this will come in handy when I start getting into wine bottles. My only warning is to avoid pulling the bottle off too quickly as it can splash from the pressure build up.
PROS:
- Saves time
- Saves sanitizer
- Bowl doubles as cap sanitizer
- Sanitizes the whole bottle
- Most versions attach to a bottle tree ( Fastrack is better! )
CONS:
- Splashes sanitizer if the bottle is removed too quickly
