Delabeling + Bottling + Cleaning = 7 Hours

Phew. Yesterday- what a day.

Delabeling
It began w/ taking the labels off of 60 beer bottles. Some were cooperative, some weren't. Over the past several weeks, every beer had been poured into a glass and rinsed out immediately, so I could go straight to the sanitizing step (as i've heard ppl do here). Here's my problem- when taking off the labels- the bottles were swimming in a swamp of floating paper and glue (from the labels). I didn't bother doing any further cleaning/rinsing, hoping that my Vinator with StarSan would take care of business during sanitization. Has anybody else done something similar? I don't want to have to name my brew "Sticky's Wheat Ale".

Bottling
What I imagined would be the toughest part of my day, turned out to be the easiest. God bless the auto-siphon, bottling wand, vinator, and wing capper.

Cleaning
Background info- cleaning an ale pail 6.5gal primary, ale pail 6.5gal bottling bucket, and various equipment (auto-siphon, tubing, etc.). I was shocked to see how caked on & hard the krausen could get. I started with lots of hot water and used my hand to disturb stuck material. Then I used the appropriate amount of PBW and hot water & let it sit for about 30-45 minutes. The whole time, I only used my hand to rub the plastic and not a spong. @ the end of it, I could not get my primary to be as white as it was when it was brand new. Is this normal even after 1 brew? Upon verryy careful inspection, I can see the slightest yellow where the krausen is. I stuck my head in the bucket this morning to smell it. If you gave me 2 choices: 1) Smells like nothing or 2) Smells like beer...i'd have to pick 2. The smell isn't overwhelming, but again, is this OK? Next time I brew, can I go straight to my StarSan for sanitizing?

If you have bottles with labels, try soaking them in oxyclean for a few hours. I fill bottles up with regular water then sit 2 of them in a gallon milk jug with oxyclean in it to soak and remove labels.

Did you only let the oxyclean soak for 30-45 minutes?

You should consider letting it sit overnight if you're worried about the color/smell. If it hasn't come off and it's not a residue, it's likely that the plastic just got stained. I've never used plastic as a fermenter though, so I couldn't tell you.

For the bottles, a good soak will help them peel off easily. Oxyclean seems to be most people's top choice for soaking/cleaning and it does work great. Excess glue can be scrubbed off easily with a scrub pad. The plastic ale pails will get a little stained and also have a scent to them. I have had no problems with contamination/off flavors from using them over and over. I usually wash them out with mild soap and rinse them really good. When I want to use them again, I will just rinse and sanitize with star san. You should be good to go after that.

I usually let them soak in Oxiclean for a few days (usually because I don't get around to delabeling them right away) and then rinse them very well. The water is nasty after that, so I want to get all of that off the bottles, both inside and out.

And I usually break it up over a few days. I dislike bottling as it is, so if I had to de-label and bottle them all on the same day, I'd just end up drinking it out of the fermenter.

Thanks guys-

Yea, I had heard that oxyclean works wells before, but I had the LD Carlsons No Rinse Cleanser on hand (I have since bought PBW & StarSan, so I figured, why not use this?). I let them soak in that but each bottle was probably only soaking for like 10 - 15 minutes each. I had 60 and could only fit appx 13-14 in my sink, so I wanted to move things along- even if meant putting in a little elbow grease.

JustDave said:

The water is nasty after that, so I want to get all of that off the bottles, both inside and out.

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Yea...my water was very nasty, but I just didnt have the energy to re-rinse, then sanitize, bottle and clean. So I cut the "re-rinse" part out...and hoped that my vinator w/ StarSan would bail me out.

I do all of my cleaning the lazy man's way.

For bottles: I delabel my bottles by filling the sink in my laundry room with HOT water and the appropriate amount of PBW. I let them soak overnight, at which point most of the labels are floating in the water or are super easy to peel off.

You're right though, then you have gross glue-water. So once all the labels are off, I rinse the bottles and do another soak with hot water/ PBW over night.

After that, I do another soak (20 mins) in hot water/ Star San in my bottling bucket.

..seems like I'm the only one to go from glue water to sanitizer...hopefully it doesnt impact the finished product

What I did was similar to others here. I soaked my bottles in warm water with Oxyclean (make sure to get oxyclean free, no scents, etc) for an hour or so, at that point the labels literally just fall off. This is wonderful.

As I pulled them out of the oxyclean water, I rinsed them with tap water, let them dry (I did all this a day or two before botteling). When I went to bottle, I filled my sink with an idophor solution (StarSan is a lil better I hear). I then setup an "assembly line". My sink fits about 6 bottles (all fulyl submerged in sanitizer. So when I took a bottle out from one side, shake it dry, add another bottle to the opposite side. I'd fill the bottle I took out, cap it and repeat.

This resulted in each bottle being submerged in the sanitized for at least 10 minutes each. I also had my caps in a bowl of the sanitizer as well. Mind you this was my first brew, and I still haven't tasted it after the full 3 weeks of conditioning, but so far it's tasting damn good.

Edit: Also, for cleaning, oxyclean dissolves all that gunk from fermentaion.. I just soaked my blowoff tube in it for about an hour or so and was all clean. Note that oxyclean is not a sanitizer though.

I never bothered with trying to get labels off. I just used them with labels.

BearsWickedBrew said:

Yea, I had heard that oxyclean works wells before, but I had the LD Carlsons No Rinse Cleanser on hand

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If you used LD Carlson "One Step" no rinse cleanser, you did use OxiClean Free. If I'm not mistaken they're the same thing. It's just a mixture of sodium percarbonate and sodium carbonate. Regular OxiClean also has surfactant (detergent) crystals in it, so if you use regular OxiClean rinse your gear really well afterwards. Bubbles in your beer are good, but not soap bubbles!

adrock said:

Bubbles in your beer are good, but not soap bubbles!

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Great...that reminds of me of another thing I am worried about. After using my vinator w/ star san... some of my bottles had bubbles in them. Some even kept the bubbles during the whole procedure...from the vinator...to the bottle tree...to the bottling wand. I was unsure @ what level I should fill my first couple beers because bubbles were comming out the top..even though I knew I still had a couple more inches to fill.

..the whole time, I said to myself..its ok..I remember reading on the forum that the foaming from StarSan is harmless.?

Yep, foaming from StarSan is harmless. I often bottle while the foam is still present and it all comes out the top. This will not affect your beer. I didn't mean to freak you out about yet another thing. The new brewer has enough to worry about. Don't fear the foam!

Hey Guys, I haven't clean my bottles yet, I got some oxiclean versatile, don't know if is scented or not, smells like soap, but on the box it says: "carpets & linoleum, drains & disposals, sport equipment & toys, unfinished decks, fencing & siding, outdoor furniture & awning and much more...".
Will this work for my bottles or do I need other kind?
Thanks for your help
Cheers

I think you would be better off with something that's specifically "Oxyclean free". I don't remember if mine smells like soap or not to be honest. If that's all you have though, a good rinse should help. Maybe try usign it on a few bottles, rinse, let dry, see if there's still a scent.

Paul, you may want to wait for someone with more experience to weigh in on this one.........I would think you could technically use it, but the copious rinsing needed afterwards would be prohibitive of your time. You'd probably want to rinse each bottle 5-6 times to make sure you got rid of the detergent and its film. It would probably be easier to go get some oxiclean free or one-step.

Having a friend running the capper makes it a hell of a lot easier.

BeerPressure said:

Having a friend running the capper makes it a hell of a lot easier.

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Alright..speaking of cappers...(sorry if i keep bringing up issues here). I had a True Brew Kit that came with priming sugar (i believe it was dextrose). I boiled it w/ water, cooled it, emptied it into bottling bucket, siphoned beer on top..and stirred ever so gently w/ the tube that was in there.

I was filling...placing caps on bottles...and then officially capping after I had a batch of 10. All of a sudden..i heard this poof & clink sound. I turn around....the cap that i placed on the bottle popped off the bottle. Do you think I have a potential batch of bottle bombs? Has this happened to any1 before?

BearsWickedBrew said:

I was filling...placing caps on bottles...and then officially capping after I had a batch of 10. All of a sudden..i heard this poof & clink sound. I turn around....the cap that i placed on the bottle popped off the bottle. Do you think I have a potential batch of bottle bombs? Has this happened to any1 before?

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Happens to me all the time, never had a bottle bomb yet. It's just the co2 pushing against something with no resistance that is just precariously balanced on to.

^Very comforting

I use a weak ammonia solution with an overnight soak and the bottle labels peel right off.

BearsWickedBrew said:

I could not get my primary to be as white as it was when it was brand new. Is this normal even after 1 brew? Upon verryy careful inspection, I can see the slightest yellow where the krausen is. I stuck my head in the bucket this morning to smell it. If you gave me 2 choices: 1) Smells like nothing or 2) Smells like beer...i'd have to pick 2. The smell isn't overwhelming, but again, is this OK?

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The plastic will get slightly discolored over the first few batches, and will never ne white again, no worries. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, the best way to avoid the smell left in the bucket... is to keep you head out of there.:cross:

I just went through all the wrong things you can do while cleaning bottles. I put 55 bottles in a big cooler, It took a 60 quart cooler to cover them all up. I looked at the instructions for how much One Step to use for 60 Quarts of water. That took up a good part of the package. Then I soaked them overnight.
The next day the labels came right off, but there was a thick layer of residue on all the bottles. Maybe one of the reasons is that I used water from the well I have in my yard and the temperature as it comes out of the ground is pretty cool. So I rinsed the bottles out and Mixed up some Oxy-Clean and soaked them again, still using too much Oxy clean I think.
The next morning the bottles were still covered with residue. So I brought them all in the house & soaked them about 6-7 at a time in white vinegar for about 15 minutes & brushed them with a bottle brush. After all that they came out clean & i rinsed them good & later that night I bottled them up. Next time if the bottles are not rinsed out after using I won't be bothering with them again. Next time I will try the Oxy-Clean in the house with warm water & see how that works.