How to Clean Grungy dirt out of Old Bottles

Though of course I mean no disrespect to Grunge the long ago Fashion choice.  In fact My fashion choice for a very short period.  I thought we needed a  wee rest after all the excitement and Our John spent some time yesterday going through his bottle collection and cleaning a few of them with this new idea. We are cleaning out an area of the basement in preparation for the building of a new cellar/storeroom/distillery/fermenting room.  It does not have a name yet. 

And when one begins a project of this kind it is like lighting the fire, you have to read every piece of old newspaper before screwing it up and loading on the kindling.  So when Our John came across his bottle collection, wandering off onto a completely different tangent seemed appropriate. So.

Get your old bottles, soak and then scrub as much of the dirt out as you can with a little bottle brush. 

Here is the trick. Cut up a piece of  copper wire into little pieces. Put copper pieces, a little vinegar, a little dishwashing liquid and some water into the bottle.

And shake and shake and shake and shake until you can shake no more. Or the bottle is clean. Which ever comes first. Of course you can build a machine to do the shaking but when living sustainably Me Power is the best power.  Plus if your hands are busy you cannot possibly carry rubbish bags of  important stuff out to the truck destined for the dump.  And Voila!

The inside of the bottle is clean.  Well cleaner anyway.  After all some of this dirt is OLD and takes some shifting. 

Lovely.  Lots of gorgeous clean bottles for more vanilla essence, and viniagrettes, and all kinds of stuff smuggled out to the truck while he was distracted.  He had forgotton he was saving this junk anyway!  No. I did not throw away the good stuff. But how many pairs of old boots complete with cracks and hardened tar, jars of rusted and broken pots and worn out rugs and  bug eaten car magazines and empty boxes from the fan you bought ten years ago which never worked for long anyway, and old swimming pool hoses does a man need?  And a raft? What? Of course I have kept the three legged chairs, antique ice skating boots, boxes of dubious tapes with no tape player and the disco ball.  Disco ball? And why is there a full sized plastic model of the Millenium Falcon,  that takes up an entire ping pong table. Why is this still down here? I thought you had found another home for that?  Oh yeah, That!

This dust free, purpose built storage room will be magnificent. As soon as I can clear a space so the builder can get down here.

This morning is wonderfully warm. 48F  (8C.)  With a little rain.  I hear the sheep wandering about outside so they will be a happy, if soggy, flock this morning.  They love the rain. Daisy does NOT Like the rain thank you very much!

It will be a good day on the Farmy. Good morning!

c