Label removal

Have a case of bottles with a very stubborn label, any good tricks to get these bottles cleaned off?

Soak in hot water with baking soda. Great Lakes Brewing Co have the toughest labels and baking soda works. Use a lot though! I would say about half a box per 5 gallons of water depending on how many bottles you are cleaning. I have some bottles soaking right now. Sam Adams bottles clean well. Hope this helps.

I have had great luck with hot water and oxyclean

I put mine in the dishwasher, and run them through a cycle without using any detergent. Seems to make em fall right off.

I've always just soaked them off, but someone recently mentioned to me that they use a vegetable peeler. I've never tried it myself, but it seemed like it might be a good idea when they mentioned it.

schmitt777 said:

Have a case of bottles with a very stubborn label, any good tricks to get these bottles cleaned off?

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Green lid Oxyclean Free. Amazing stuff, part of my everyday brewery cleaning supplies. Fill a bucket with warm water and oxyclean, put in the bottles... next morning the labels and glue are gone! Great stuff to clean used bottles before sanitation as well.

I've been soaking Sam Adams in hot water and Oxyclean, and the labels fall off in a few minutes, but I've heard that they are easy labels.
If you do the dishwasher method, take them out before the dry cycle starts, that will just rebake them back on.

schmitt777 said:

Have a case of bottles with a very stubborn label, any good tricks to get these bottles cleaned off?

Click to expand...

I've had great success with Arm and Hammer washing (not baking) soda and hot water. just about label falls right off. The more stubborn ones come off with a razor scraper.

Hot water and Five Star PBW does the trick for me. Maybe it's just me but it seems to work faster than Oxyclean. A little goes a long way too.

The Oxy worked like a champ!

Shorts Brewery labels are also impossible to get off. I have to use a razor. Almost all other labels fall off with hot water and Oxy as stated above. I have used the "magic eraser" to get the gunk off, it works well once you have scraped the label off.

I've also been using fine steel wool and hot water for stubborn labels. Works like a charm if you let them soak for 5-10 minutes.

About a cup of ammonia in say 3 gallons of water is what I use for labels. I soak overnight out on the back porch. Generally, most labels come off with out a fight. Might be a little glue residue so I run over them with Chore-Boy.

Red Brick, Saranac and Mendocino labels have been a pain to remove. Did about about a case and half this afternoon. Some of those were so problematic, or rather I didn't feel like messing with them, I recycled them.

But yeah, after sitting out for a day or two in ammonia water, they generally slide right off.

Yup, im impatient like rbald, scalding hot water soak for 15 mins and they mostly peel off, then I hit em with steel wool, 50 bottles de-labeled in an hour or so