Just our of curiousity, do you label during bottling or later?

I decided to go all out, and make a label for my first brew. Since I am still working on some ideas, I probably won't have the label ready by Sunday, which is when I plan to bottle.

I am just curious to see where the creation of labels and the applying of said labels falls into your schedule.

after i bottle all the beer.

later... I work on the labels when it's fermenting, then label after conditioning. However, with that said, currently I only have two different brews in bottles and I know which is which, soon that will be changing as I have two more that will be bottled come the end of the month - so I very well maybe labeling sooner!

When I used to bottle, I would design the label whenever the inspiration came to me... Sometimes before the brew, sometimes during fermentation...

Application of the labels was always after bottling. The last step of my bottling process after capping was a quick dip in a bucket of hot water to rinse off all the beer splatters. Then I would let it condition and apply the labels when it was ready to be rolled out.

After. When filling you bottles using a bottling wand you fill the bottles til they brim over just a bit then pull the wand out which sets the proper amount of headspace. So it's inevitable to have some beer or sanitizer dripping down the bottle. So you want to wait til AFTER you've capped and maybe cleaned up the bottles, to slap your labels on.

It's the same for commerical lines for the most part.

I've never labeled mine... maybe someday I'll do it, i just am to lazy. I generally just write the bottling date, and abbreviate what kind of beer it is on the cap...

peachwein said:

I've never labeled mine... maybe someday I'll do it, i just am to lazy. I generally just write the bottling date, and abbreviate what kind of beer it is on the cap...

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Yeah I don't either. I may design them for the heck of it. And I plan on doing it for my barleywine. But I figure, I spent so much time getting the original labels off that I can't think of any reason why I'd want to do it again. I just label the caps with a sharpie.