Labels on old bottles?

How important is it to remove the labels on old bottles?

The beer will be on the inside and the labels on the outside, but I'm thinking about when the bottles are emersed in sanitizing solution.

If you're just keeping the beer to yourself, it's not important at all. The glue and ink in the labels shouldn't effect your sanitizer much, if at all. If, however, you decide to enter a contest, it is critical. They won't accept bottles with commercial labels. If you're giving a few away to friends it isn't as important, but it is a nice touch for the presentation.

If you're soaking in sanitizer for a few hours or more, you might end up removing many of the labels anyway. If you're only soaking for a few minutes to sanitize, they probably won't float off as easily.

I always try to remove labels just to avoid confusion. I generally wait until i have 24 bottles or so and then fill my bath tub up with hot water and let them sit for an hour or so, then pull them out and MOST labels will peel right off. If not, bust out an old wire brush and go to town.

For my first batch I removed all labels. The labels of the microbrew/regional beers I usually drink in Japan come off ok-ish after a long steep and a bit of a scrape.

But the "new" 500ml Asahi/Kirin/Malts bottles I got from the recycling bins are stubborn as heck and it would take a few nights to get the labels of the 100 or so bottles I have.

Thanks for the replies.

homebrewjapan said:

How important is it to remove the labels on old bottles?

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Not important at all from a functional point of view, but many of use like the clean no-label look.

It's your choice...Me personally I like using unlabeled bottles....and they're not hard to remove with an oxyclean soak.

I have some brewbuddies who don't bother removing them.

I find it entertaining to train your friends to questions whats actually in a bottle of beer, so I leave the labels on. They've learned that pretty much any bottle I give them has absolutely nothing to do with what's on the label. Every once in a while though....."Hey, this isn't Sam Adams"