- Cleaning an Ancient Bottle

It's a crisp Wisconsin morning and we had to wake our person up ourselves as she was snuggled down in the covers as though she would never get up. The cat tried to get her up by nosing her face with his small wet snout. She cried out and pushed him away. Her flailed arm remained hung off the bed and so I, Eli, set my whole snout right in her open hand and just rested it there. It made her laugh out loud, and so it was that she finally arose at 6:18 this morning. Both of us dogs got our heads ruffled lovingly at the top of the bed as we wagged. She can tell us apart by feel. She says Guthrie's ears are more velvety than mine, which is fine because that sounds kind of girly and I am a he-hound.

She is stumbling around in the home trying to decide how the day will go from here. Luckily we all got fed right away. I, Eli, am still waiting for her to open the door to the little room where the cat eats so I can clean up in there. Cats are surprisingly lax about the morsels and lickings they leave behind in their cat bowl. I take it upon myself to keep the home clean.

Meanwhile, our Person, "Me," cleaned a very old bottle. It's an ancient milk bottle which Me's elder man brought her. The elder man is her dad. Me was searching for an apple-cider making jug and the elder man has a treasure trove of items on his land. He found this ancient bottle for her there. Since she does not know the history of what said bottle held (she hopes it was not old spark plugs or even coins which are also filthy), and it's too big to sanitize in the dishwasher, she devised a way to clean the dirt from the far recesses of the inside and sanitize it too.

We think the bottle-cleaning technique is worthy of recipe space. Note that vinegar is has excellent anti-bacterial properties. Our Person cleans the whole house spotless with a tablespoon of vinegar in a bucket of warm water and maybe also a smidge of soap.

Cleaning an Ancient Bottle
We had our bottle soaking for a day with soapy water in it, partly due to neglect but also to loosen particles.

1. Fill the bottle about 1/3 with soapy water and swirl and swish as you can. Poke a dishcloth in through the top and let it fall to the bottom. Swirl and swish that around the sides.

2. In this manner, wash as well as can be with dish soap and water inside and out. Empty out the water.

3. Sprinkle a good deal of baking soda (maybe 1/2 cup for a gallon bottle like ours) in the mouth of the wet bottle so much as to cover the bottom. Twirl around to get any soda powder possible on the sides too.

4. Pour in 1 cup or so of white vinegar. This is the exciting step as the vinegar bubbles wildly and moves around the scratchy soda particles which scrub off dirt in the recesses of the bottle.

5. Swirl and swirl around again. After the vinegar is bubbled out, we add more. Partly just because it's fun but also because we aren't sure every dirt spec was gotten. You can see the dingy color of the vinegar when the bubbling subsides and know that it has cleaned up dirt for you.

6. Rinse it all out at the sink. Then take the bottle out back to the hose with a sprayer on the end of it. Rinse out the bottle again with the sprayer nozzle right in the mouth of the bottle for maximum water pressure - see how much soap residue, and such, bubbles up with the violent spray action of the hose?

That's all it took for our bottle. Now it's whistle-clean and a little squeaky on the glass too. This is the esteemed bottle we will use to make our very own apple cider vinegar. Watch for that exciting post in days to come.