My friend Vic Wolczuk and I have been making wine together for more than 12 years. We consider washing bottles the least enjoyable part of our hobby and recently decided to find an easier way to get it done. When a free portable dishwasher found its way into my hands, we took it as a sign that this was the direction we were meant to go.

The only problem with a dishwasher is it’s designed to clean the outside of bottles, not the inside where it counts to us winemakers. So, Vic and I built a manifold to channel water pumped by the machine into the bottles. The supplies cost us about $100 at a typical home supply store.

Our prototype (Figure 1) has five wash arms and 24 copper spouts fed through a CPVC manifold. The downward elbow mates with the pump takeoff (Figure 2) when the rack is in its operating position.

Every dishwasher will have a different setup for feeding its spray arms, and it’s possible that some may not be easily adapted for this project. We cut off most of the plastic spray arm support to leave just a rim suitable for clamping on a flexible
coupling. The smaller side of the coupling clamps onto a 1-inch (2.6-cm) elbow that feeds the manifold.

On the main arm we used 1-inch (2.6-cm) CPVC piping and fittings, which reduce down to 1/2-inch (1.3-cm) diameter for the wash arms. The bottle spouts are 1/4-inch  (0.64-cm) copper, and are roughly 6 inches (15.4 cm) long. This length provides goods support for the bottles and keeps the water outlet above any standing water that might occur as the water tries to drain out, which is particularly a problem with Bordeaux bottles.

To make mounting the copper wash arms easier, we made the spouts with a saddle for soldering onto the wash arm.  We cut the spouts into 6 3/8-inch (16.3-cm) lengths and drilled a 3/32-inch (0.24-cm) hole 3/8 inch (0.96 cm) from one end. After splitting the end up to the hole using a hacksaw, we spread apart the two saddle pieces. Then using pliers and a small hammer we flattened and shaped these pieces to fit the curvature of the wash arm (Figure 5) and tinned the pieces to prepare them for soldering. Next we drilled 7/32-inch (0.56-cm) holes into the wash arm at roughly 3 1/4-inch (8.3-cm) intervals to accommodate larger diameter bottles and tinned the area around each hole.

The soldering rig is a clamp locked in a vice. When soldering, the 1/2-inch (1.3-cm) wash arm rests in a V-notched block of wood clamped in the rig (Figure 6), the spout is carefully positioned over the hole, and a clamp is tightened to hold it in place while being soldered. We recommend a 300-watt soldering iron for effective heat transfer. Finally, we soldered an end cap on one end of the wash arm and an adapter onto the other for attaching it to a threaded CPVC fitting.

We friction fit the CPVC socket fittings with suitable lengths of piping and used copper wire to secure the whole assembly, then attached it to the dishwasher rack. We also drilled a small hole into the manifold near the cup to flush out the detergent. We use 40 grams (~ 1/4 cup) of a commercial brewing cleaner called PBW.