How to easily remove beer bottle labels.
Label removal depends on the company that bottled the brew. I live in Michigan and some local brewer labels magically fall off after a 20 minute soak in hot water. Other local brewers use plastic laminar labels and a silicon type adhesive. If I soak them for the next 20 years they still will not come off. I have found that most German beer labels come off easily. So...if it does not come off easily, pass that brand. When I found a type of beer that had easily removable labels, I spread the word at work and people were willing to donate their bottles to a homebrewer. That shows the generosity of fellow beer drinkers when you consider that bottle deposit is 10 cents a bottle here in this state.
I soak the bottles in PBW, and that takes the label off pretty good.
I might be the only person who leaves them on? I even leave on my old batch number labels I like the running history on each bottle. I have some that are just lucky bottles, never a bad batch on em!
I'm a photographer and sometimes I need to remove "painted on" labels from clear bottles. I've found that using a utility knife blade works quite well (scrapping the paint off). I've never had to do this for a beer bottle but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Also, you might consider using adhesive removers often used in the hair replacement industry. You can do a Google search for toupee tape remover or similar searches for removing ultra tough paper labels.
Otherwise I've found that the baking soda/water mixture works well. Though the toughest labels were by far from Rouge. They must have something in the water that makes the beer great and the glue extra sticky.
Hope any of this helps.
Oh man, chemicals and gasoline?? Well if it works I guess it doesn't matter how you got there but I've found Oxyclean and hot water to be the easiest method. Let them soak for a couple of hours and they come right off. Sometimes they slip off by themselves and just float to the top of the bucket.
Amen to PBW. this takes off any type of label overnight. I can soak about 120 bottles in my cellar sink, about 3 table spoons of PBW and fill the bottles to sink them in solution.
By the way a potato peeler works on the painted lables, but I personally like to leave them on. I also don't bother to take lables off sometimes. I'm a father of two kids I don't have that kind of time to take labels off damnit, Ha ha.
For labels or paint I just put the bottles in a container full of the leftover Star San from brewing. In a week the labels are laying on the bottom of the container and the paint is flaking off.
Sorry for bumping an old thread, but I'm seconding the "just wait" method. I keep a big "garden tub" in my brew area filled with water and a cup of ammonia. Sink the bottles, wait a week. Agitate, drain, pick up the bottles, scoop up labels from the bottom.
I drink a lot of Abita, so they're pretty easy to remove, but my method works for foil bottle toppers too. I never tried to remove paint, but I would imagine a little acetone would work, and leaves no chemical residue.
I only take labels off of bottles if I think I want ot enter a brew in contests. Sam Adams comes off easy. just soak in hot water and 15 minutes later the peel off nicely. others are a pain so I just use them for drinking homebrew and not to send to contests.
DC
I found that i fill my kitchen sink up with worm water and add about 1/3 cup of straight AMMONIA.. let the bottles soak for about 30-40 mins. and the labels where floating in the sink. and the glue wipes right off.