How to clean water bottles?

[tulip]

water bottles go in the dishwasher. Hydration pack bladder gets rinsed out (I only use water in it) and I store it in the freezer.

[derailed]

I use vinegar and baking soda. If it's a nightmare, I use a denture tablet, then soap and cold water, then rinse til I can't smell it. Hot water holds the soap smell.
The bottle brush also goes in the dishwasher!

[Fujichants]

Thanks everybody!

I just looked in the spout area and oh my goodness it's a nightmare. I managed to get most of it out with vinegar but there are some hard to reach spots and I ran out of vinegar in the process.

I think I will just throw that bottle away.

Funny thing is, it's the bottle I use for water. The bottle I use for my sugary drinks is fine. Only it smells a bit like grape, but i'm not complaining about that!

[wackyjacky1]

+1 on the dishwasher. Plus, when not in use, I always make sure to leave the tops off so they can air dry on the inside.

[Tokie]

Fuji - I recently noticed there was a pink (cytomax) gunky build up on my H20 bottle spouts too. My solution was to soak them in hydrogen peroxide with the spout in both the open and closed position, and scrub the crevices with a toothbrush. I have vowed to clean my bottle tops promptly now, so the cytomax gunk doesn't solidify so seriously. but the hydrogen peroxide was great. Tokie

[AnnieBikes]

If mine get bad, I fill with water and add a TBS of bleach, cap them, shake well, and then let it sit overnight. In the morning, I squeeze the bottle so that some of the bleach water goes through the spout. Rinse, rinse, rinse and they are good to go. I do try really hard to wash each one well after every ride but sometimes.... Hope this works for you!

[Fujichants]

Is there a particular brand of bleach you ladies use?

I always associate bleach with that nasty smell, I can't imagine drinking from my bottle after I bleached it?

I've used vinegar and my bottles and spouts are clean! Plus I realized you can pull the black rubbery spout part from the top of the cap on the Polar bottles. I was amazed to find so much icky stuff in there! It was actually fun cleaning them