rurounikitsune
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- Joined
- Feb 26, 2008
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Once upon a time, I was trying to get the labels off some Dark Horse Brewery bottles so I could reuse them. I painstakingly scratched the labels off with a credit card. Then, after half an hour, steel wool, Brillo, detergent, and acetone, nothing worked to remove the adhesive goo where the label had been. I told SWMBO to get a different solvent. She came up with vegetable oil. I laughed at her.
So, long story short, if you want to get the label goo off a commercial beer bottle and nothing else is working, you might try this method. Soak it in warm water to weaken the paper and then peel off as much as you can. Then use a paper towel to apply cheap vegetable oil to all the goo that is left over. You will know if it is working because the goo is gone. The oil dissolves the adhesive immediately. The paper towel wipes it off effortlessly. It only works if you wet, weaken, and tear off the top layer of the paper (which is not that hard). The oil will only dissolve the adhesive it can actually get to. If there is a thin layer of paper, a little rubbing with a paper towel might get the oil to soak through the paper (if it is thin and weak enough) and it will come off easily.
If the bottle feels oily afterward, a grease-cutting dish detergent will remove the oil as fast as the oil removed the goo. Then I clean the inside of the bottles just in case anything made it in. I have to clean the inside anyway so it works out nicely. Using this method I can pour myself a glass of Sam Adams, and have the bottle cleaned, delabeled, and ready for sanitization before the head is gone. No overnight soaking, no expensive cleaning solutions, no nothing.
So, long story short, if you want to get the label goo off a commercial beer bottle and nothing else is working, you might try this method. Soak it in warm water to weaken the paper and then peel off as much as you can. Then use a paper towel to apply cheap vegetable oil to all the goo that is left over. You will know if it is working because the goo is gone. The oil dissolves the adhesive immediately. The paper towel wipes it off effortlessly. It only works if you wet, weaken, and tear off the top layer of the paper (which is not that hard). The oil will only dissolve the adhesive it can actually get to. If there is a thin layer of paper, a little rubbing with a paper towel might get the oil to soak through the paper (if it is thin and weak enough) and it will come off easily.
If the bottle feels oily afterward, a grease-cutting dish detergent will remove the oil as fast as the oil removed the goo. Then I clean the inside of the bottles just in case anything made it in. I have to clean the inside anyway so it works out nicely. Using this method I can pour myself a glass of Sam Adams, and have the bottle cleaned, delabeled, and ready for sanitization before the head is gone. No overnight soaking, no expensive cleaning solutions, no nothing.