Beer bottle label removal

I have been removing beer bottle labels with soapy water and copper pads. It takes some elbow greese but works for most bottle labels. Lately I have run into some labels that have been stuborn to remove( like railbender ale and rustbelt to name a few). What method do y'all use for your bottles?

I usually soak mine in Oxyclean free(unscented/plain) for a few hours. Alot of labels usually fall off in the water. Some require peeling the label and resoaking the residual glue for a little bit and then hit it with brush. There's several threads on the topic in Labels/display

soak them in a 10 gallon cooler with hot water and 2 scoops oxyclean for 3-4 hours and they will almost fall off on their own... there are tons of threads on this...

Thanks...I'm new to this site...I didn't think to look in a different spot...sorry and thanks again!

Yeah, I'm in the process of stripping the labels for my first batch. I wash 'em out first, especially if they're the kind with yeast sediment, and I and soak them o/n in bucket full of bleach water (just b/c oxyclean isn't available where I live) and rinse in the morning. It's worked fine so far.

I still plan on sanitizing again before I bottle, though, since I used tap water to rinse and I'm very cautious (perhaps unnecessarily so) about introducing microbes. I'd defer to the wisdom of more experienced ppl than me on this one, though.

after a 15 minute soak in the sink.

Dishwasher. You'll find most of the labels in the drain screen when the cycle is done. Some labels won't come off like the foil sticker ones and some really stubborn ones.

Just soak them in a sink with hot water for an hour or so, then take a scotchbrite pad or steel wool style dish scrubber to take the glue off. I never use oxyclean, plain water works fine for me.

Oxi clean is the easiest and best way, just need to make sure you hold on tight as they are very slippery

verotik said:

Just soak them in a sink with hot water for an hour or so, then take a scotchbrite pad or steel wool style dish scrubber to take the glue off. I never use oxyclean, plain water works fine for me.

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I just started getting into brewing and wine making and a soak in some warm water for a few hours and most labels pull right off leaving only a slight glue residue that easily comes off with a scrub brush.

The stubborn ones (foil labels, Sam Adams Variety Packs, etc) I scrape with a butter knife to get most of it off and then clean with the scrub brush.

Even the stubborn ones only take about 45 seconds.

Maybe I just haven't run into any REALLY stubborn ones yet.

I soak in hot water (which gets most of the paper) and scrub/re-soak to get the residual glue off.

Why would OxyClean be necessary remove the labels?

SoonerDoc said:

Why would OxyClean be necessary remove the labels?

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It seems that the ingredients in OxyClean softens or liquefies the glue. It makes removing the labels and glue super easy. If I soak overnight the labels fall off and the remaining glue just washes off.

Of the few I've tried, just hot water softens the glue too.
I may have to try one of each and see how well it works.

SoonerDoc said:

I soak in hot water (which gets most of the paper) and scrub/re-soak to get the residual glue off.

Why would OxyClean be necessary remove the labels?

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Its not necessary. Just like a car isn't necessary to get from point A to point B. But oxyclean, like a car, eliminates nearly any effort required. After an overnight soak all I have to do is pull the bottles out and rinse. The labels fall off on their own.

I think the most stubborn ones I've dealt with so far are Great Lakes Brewing Co bottles. They use some pretty intense glue.

Used to soak and scrub all my bottles, now just a bath of warm water and a little ammonia and the labels fall right off. Then just wipe off the glue. Haven't tried oxyclean but pretty sure ammonia is cheaper anyway.

DavidHawman said:

Its not necessary. Just like a car isn't necessary to get from point A to point B. But oxyclean, like a car, eliminates nearly any effort required. After an overnight soak all I have to do is pull the bottles out and rinse. The labels fall off on their own.

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I just meant does the OxyClean really help that much? My labels come off fairly easily even if I soak in hot water for only 30 minutes or so.

SoonerDoc said:

I just meant does the OxyClean really help that much? My labels come off fairly easily even if I soak in hot water for only 30 minutes or so.

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Yes. OxyClean really does help that much.

When I first started brewing, I cleaned 200+ bottles by soaking them in the bathtub overnight filled with super-hot water. The labels came off ok, some even floated off, but it took some scrubbing with the rough side of a sponge on some to get all the glue off, and on others the glue simply didn't dissolve enough, and I had to use a putty knife to get them off, then finish it with the sponge. It was a pain in the back... quite literally.

I did some homework here, and elsewhere n the web, and OxyClean (specifically OxyClean Free... no chlorine, dyes or perfumes) was the prevailing solution. So, I gave it a try.

Night and day.

While hot water and a little elbow grease did work, and work well, the OxyClean worked so much better. Volumes better. David vs Goliath better! A soak in super-hot water and OxyClean (1 ounce of powder to 5 gallons of water) for 10-20 minutes and the labels were all left on the bottom of the bucket. Even the foil on Negra Modello bottles peeled off easily. A light pass with sponge removed the feebly clinging glue residue from every bottle.

One side benefit I've never heard mentioned was this: quite a lot of the bottles I get come from friends who don't rinse them before putting them to the side for me, and most of them end up with a mold colony clinging to the bottom (dried on, and holding on for dear life). Previously, with hot water and/or soap and a bottle brush, I'd struggle to get these out and would just pitch the bottles that had anything left in them. With the OxyClean, those little mold colonies detach from the glass within 15 seconds of getting wet and float up to the surface. I have had to take a brush to 4 bottles (out of 150 or so) since using Oxy, and have thrown none away.

Can't say for sure, but I think that OxyClean attacks the protein bonds in the mold, and causes them to detach from the glass. The same for the glue on most labels.

So yeah, hot water, a putty knife, a scrubber and some effort will work just fine. OxyClean will work better. Dunno' about you, but I'd rather work smarter than harder, and use that saved time actually enjoying my beer. Better living through modern chemistry. *grins*

Also, did a bit of a comparison between OxyClean and the Sun Oxygen Cleaner knockoff, and found that even at double the strength the knockoff wasn't as effective as regular Oxy. YMMV.

Are you sure?

SoonerDoc said:

Are you sure?

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I... wait... I'm beginning to think that perhaps, just maybe, I would rather spend countless hours hunched over my sink/tub filled with water alone, putty knife clenched in my waterlogged, now arthritic claw, cursing the gods that inspired some boneheaded clown of a packaging-designer to use water insoluble glue to hold foil -- FOIL! -- to the neck of a pleasingly shaped, and therefore very desirable bottle.

*massages forehead*

Oh. Never mind. The moment has passed. Nope, definitely OxyClean for me. *grins*

+1 on oxyclean in a warm water bath for a few hours. Labels fall right off. I had to use the rough side of a sponge to get the residual glue off of Dos Equis bottles, but it was easy after the oxyclean soak. I just did this with about 50 bottles (dos equis, red hook, deschutes, fat tyre, and a few stragglers) last night

An alternate solution is leaving the labels on, which requires no effort at all.

I may get back to de-labeling bottles again at some point, but I have to admit that getting them off became a pretty low priority for me; they just really don't bother me all that much. BUT, if I do go back, I'll definitely make it OxyClean, since I've read all these testimonials to its powers.

I have always wondered some peoples resistance to the suggestion that OxyClean works so well to remove labels.

Read all the threads! Oxy works - resistance is futile!

Seriously, once you try it you will see how well it works, not only to remove labels but with cleaning some of your equipment. I use the cheap stuff from WalMart. King Soopers (Kroger in some places) has an even cheaper Oxy knock off.

I use smithwick's bottles. I had read on here that soaking overnight in a bucket with water and oxiclean was the way to go, so I tried it.

Not hot water... cold water. Put all my bottles in, sprinkled a half a scoop of oxiclean free on top and went to bed.

Woke up, and rinsed off my bottles... the labels slid off them and floated to the bottom of the bucket. No sticky residue or anything just nice clean bottles.

Marsdude said:

King Soopers (Kroger in some places) has an even cheaper Oxy knock off.

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Its kroger everywhere... they are the parent company and own a bunch of smaller chains. Here in Arizona its Fry's.

How come nobody mentioned PBW yet?

I use a couple tablespoons of PBW in a 5 gal bucket, and about a half hour later the labels are floating. Cheap, easy, safe.

PBW FTW!