I'll never understand why....

Ahhhhhh.... First world problems.

To quote the venerable Casey Beathard

"You do your thing, I'll do mine"

signpost said:

Wow. I'm surprised none of you have died from label contamination. Everybody knows that beer labels go bad after their first use. You people must like living on the edge. I'm not even convinced the bottles even last more than a couple uses. If I could, I'd just drink straight from the fermenter and carbonate each gulp in my mouth.

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My wife is wondering what is so dang funny right now.

ElyIrishBrew said:

My wife is wondering what is so dang funny right now.

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I just got an awesome mental picutre of someone with a co2 hose shoved into their mouth and a horrified look on their face when wifey just opened the door to the brew room without knocking. hahaha

Cambone said:

Ahhhhhh.... First world problems.

To quote the venerable Casey Beathard

"You do your thing, I'll do mine"

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Maybe that's where my 9th grade math teacher got his saying above the blackboard-"do your own thing,but don't stop me from doing mine".

A lot of the bottles i can get cheaply are 22's that are misprints, but they are bottles where the label is printed onto the bottle itself with glue or epoxy or whatever whatever it is they use..and it never comes off.

RainyDay said:

Just sandblast the bottles. Its quick, easy, and everyone has a sandblaster anyway

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Please convince me I need a sandblaster for my hobby. So many uses...removing beer labels, de-rusting those patio chairs...mmm, I'm out of reasons--but I'm sure I need one.

Wow, am I ever disgusted with this thread. It's like listening to people discuss politics, vote this guy vote that guy, labels, no labels.

Shut the front door and make/brew/prepare beer the way you like...

Who drinks beer out of the bottle anyways? Do labels really matter? They don't at all, in fact it's a meaningless thread.

For a long time I was making my own labels using printable shipping labels. Now I've come to realize that the adhesive on those was forged in the fires of Mount Doom and it's a huge pain in the ass to remove those. So the last couple batches I've been a little lazy with removing those, but I actually just spent the weekend removing the labels from all my empties, so that's actually a relief. I've since started printing labels on glossy laser jet paper and using milk to affix them. These labels come off after 2 minutes of soaking, so that's my plan from now on.

I de-label mine just because i use my dishwasher to wash them before I star-san and bottle. I have fisher-paykel dish drawers and keep the bottom one free of jet dry just so I can use it for bottles. I have a pretty good supply of de-labeled bottles now, so I only do a case or so every two months just to make up for ones that weren't returned.

ktblunden said:

I've since started printing labels on glossy laser jet paper and using milk to affix them. These labels come off after 2 minutes of soaking, so that's my plan from now on.

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Milk?! As in cow juice?

mcspanner said:

Milk?! As in cow juice?

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Yep....works great, and the labels come off easy. Just don't put them in a cooler full of ice and water....you'll have floating labels in no time.

MinnesnowtaBrew said:

Wow, am I ever disgusted with this thread. It's like listening to people discuss politics, vote this guy vote that guy, labels, no labels.

Shut the front door and make/brew/prepare beer the way you like...

Who drinks beer out of the bottle anyways? Do labels really matter? They don't at all, in fact it's a meaningless thread.

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So........
do you leave em on (Obama)
or take em off (Romney)

I don't think that the label being left on the bottle matters much, and I certainly don't think that its an indicator of laziness.

To use another example, do you only drink your homebrew from an unlabeled glass? If you aren't screening or etching your own glassware, are you being lazy?

This thread should be removed.

The bottles with labels removed are the ones I keep for myself because I took the time and want to keep them. Anything I give away is typically in a painted bottle(rogue etc.) or still has a label. I remove labels when they begin to fall off or when I buy back recycled bottles that need cleaning in Oxi-Clean.

I always remove the labels simply because I want to. I'm gonna give the bottles an Oxyclean soak anyway, so I might as well go ahead and remove the labels. Plus when I move up to kegging I'll have a large stock of label free bottles to sell to new brewers