How to easily remove beer bottle labels.
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.
Marv. wrote:
Depends on whose bottles they are.
Some come right off, some take some scrubbing.
I don't like to see the glue on the bottles I reuse.
I get my water as hot as I can, let 'em soak, and peel em.
Then I take a scratch pad and scrub the glue off.
Have you ever seen some bodies face when you offer
them a home brew and the bottle looks nasty?
Not a good way to get some one intrested into home brewing.
I clean 'em off pretty good.
Wipe em off with a paper towel too, remove the water spots,
I know I wont drink out of a nasty looking bottle.
But maybe thats just me.
I have found that if you fill your sink up with hot watter and add about 1/3 to a 1/2 cup of ammonia in the water and let the bottles soak for about 30-40 mins. The lables come off and the glue to..
I have found plastic and foil lables very hard to remove and just save 1 one each of painted bottles for my collection. None of these are really not worth the bother. Most paper lables come off easily if soaked overnight in a hot solution of dish washing machine detergent. Some glues are more stubborn than those that are pasted, but usually come off good with a scatcherpad. Wear rubber gloves when working in the dish washing machine detergent. Throw out stubborn bottle. And just ask your friends to save bottles for you most will give you more than you can ever use if you give them a 6 pack of home brew.
Does ammonia or any of those other chemicals leave a taste behind? Anything I need to do after soaking them? I want to soak them for a long weekend before we bottle on Monday.
I tried soapy water last batch and still ended up with a lot of steel wool scrubbing at the end.
tollhaus wrote:
Does ammonia or any of those other chemicals leave a taste behind? Anything I need to do after soaking them? I want to soak them for a long weekend before we bottle on Monday.
I tried soapy water last batch and still ended up with a lot of steel wool scrubbing at the end.
if you use ammonia or any other chemical make sure you rinse very well. Glass bottles shouldn't pick up any taste from it, unless there is still some of the chemical on the glass.
I've heard that soaking in unscented Oxyclean will take most labels off easily.
Rooting for Oxi Clean to work. Long story, but my wife's trip to the grocery store to get amonia brought her home without amonia.
I also worked out what I thought was an ingenious system. Fill the bottles with water at stand 'em up on the bottom of the plastic bin. Then fill up the solution around them (not so high that it'll spill into the weighted bottles).
Problem is I didn't fill a few of them up enough with water, so they started to float. As I aimed the garden hose at them, the overflow filled the solution higher and higher which started spilling in. Now I have several bottles of oxiclean water. Hopefully oxi clean doesn't leave anything behind.
I also noticed that some of the labels were falling off almost immediately.
I have the spray attachment that power rinses bottles, so we'll just make sure to rinse each bottle very well.
Hogarthe wrote:
I've heard that soaking in unscented Oxyclean will take most labels off easily.
I've found Oxyclean to be hands down the best label remover. It's also what I use for cleaning out the kettle, carboys, plate chiller, etc.
I use Ultimate brewery wash (oxyclean) and most labels pull right off. Just put about 4 gal hot water in a 5 gal bucket and let the bottles soak for 10-15 minutes and WHALA! most of the labels have slipped off and sank to the bottom. Sierra Nevada, Sam Adams, Great Divide and several other labels come right off without any picking or excessive scrubbing.
ID
I have always used ammonia and had reasonable luck with it. I ended up with like eight cases of beer bottles taking up space and having to be cleaned and sanitized all the time before I took the plunge and started kegging. That really allowed my brewing to hit another gear. I always made sure that I cleaned and sanitized (two different steps) the bottles after label removal as the buckets of ammonia water got to looking kind of rank. I know, ammonia is rank anyway, but the gunk from the labels was worse. I think I should take a second look at oxyclean. I would still clean and sanitize separately, right before bottling. Question for you guys on oxyclean. Are there any metals that it creates problems for? Stainless steel, aluminum, copper, brass? Is it really the same thing as PBW?
I used ammonia to remove the bottles for my first couple of batches. After trying out oxyclean I've never looked back.
As far as oxyclean and metals, I've never have problems with using it in my stainless kettle. I had a friend who built a rig using aluminum and within a year all the vessels were pitting real bad. He ended up scrapping them and upgrading to 40 gallon stainless pots.
Good tips guys. I've had 50+ mixed bottles soaking for a week in anticipation of my first batch. I have to give kudos to New Belgium (peels right off) and Deschuttes (relatively clean). Widmer Brothers (who emboss their bottles anyway) are an utter pain. 
Here's hoping Oxy does the trick, because I'd hate to ruin the wife's dishwasher if they come of whilst they're in there!
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