pesky bottle lables

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mindsore

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Jun 22, 2015
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about to bottle in a couple of days and looking for the best way to get these old labels off of my reused bottles.

im sure there is info somewhere so if someone could link me to the thread or offer suggestion much appreciated
 
Soak in oxyclean or pbw overnight, then scrape off the label, if they don't just fall off. If it does not come off either use it anyway or recycle it and try a different brand.
 
I usually stick to certain brands that I know remove easily, but I've always had luck with an overnight soak in hot water with a little soap, followed by a thorough rinse
 
i like it. one more question please. what is the best way to sanitize 54 bottles after the labels are gone?
 
Oxyclean and hot water overnight soak. Some labels are plastic, and will not float off, but they have to be pealed off and then they leave glue behind.

Some brands that I find that have easily to remove labels:

Sierra Nevada
Clown Shoes
Great Lakes
Victory
Sam Adams
Three Floyds

I find that Not Your Father's Root Beer labels are plastic and can be peeled but leave glue behind, and Smithwick's are paper with some plastic that make them a pain to remove.

If you need bottles, have a card night or BBQ at your house and keep the empties. I ask the guys if they bring beer to not bring twist offs if they can help it. I reward their efforts by giving them homebrew.
 
Get one of those bottle washer attachments that screws into the faucet. Especially great for interior rinses after delabeling. The tub can get "gluey" with a lot of loose labels floating around. I find labels come off easier when the water is still warm, so I don't do overnight soaks anymore.
 
I just use hot soapy water to peel the labels of, and mr clean magic erasers work amazingly well to take the left over glue off most bottles.

As for sanitation, I just dunk them in batches into my bottling bucket with starsan. The sanitizer only needs 1 minute of contact if your bottles are clean, so it still goes pretty quick.
 
Label removal I find easier with hot or warm water, so I don't soak overnight either. About 30 minutes of soaking in hot water with Oxyclean is enough for most labels to come off. After that they get a thorough washing and left to dry.

For sanitizing I squirt some star san in each bottle with a turkey baster then I just shake the bottle to coat all the sides.
 
For sanitizing, I make a 5 gal bucket of star san and soak a bunch of bottles, dump, and fill. I keg 99% though, so others prob have better methods
 
A bucket of hot water and about 1 tbs/gallon of baking soda is what works for me to get the labels off. If they don't come off easily, I discard them.
For bottle sanitation, I make sure I rinse the bottle with hot water after drinking the beer, rinse again after label removal, at bottling time rinse again then submerge in star san for a few minutes, then dump starsan from bottle back into bucket and fill and cap immediately. If there is any dried material in the bottle, I discard it, its not worth trying to get it out.
 
I built a 12 bottle washer out of PEX, a rubbermaid 48qt container, a Closetmaid wire shelf I had laying around and a utility pump I bought onsale at Menards. I can put Oxyclean or Starsan in the rubbermaid, place the wire rack with the bottle washer on top, drop 12 bottles onto the PEX uprights and flip on the pump.

I leave each set of 12 on about 30 secs, then drop another 12 on there. Washing one at a time sucks, and soaking in a bucket of StarSan doesn't always remove the mold that could be inside if the bottles were not rinsed (my buddies bring me some bottles, but I rinse mine after I empty them)

20150704_121615.jpg
 
^ neat rig! I soak'em in PBW long enough for the labels to float off. Then use a bottle brush on the inside even though dirty/moldy gunk usually floats out easy enough. Then scrub the outside with a Dobie scrubber to get any softened label glue off. Then rinse & onto the bottle tree to dry. Here's the 45 bottle tree I use;
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/45-bottle-drying-tree.html
Ferrari also makes an Avinator to fit on top of it I fill half way with Starsan solution, give the bottle a few pumps to sanitize, then onto the bottle tree to await filling. Here's what an avinator looks like;
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/bottle-rinser-sulfiter.html
Bottles tree & sanitizer injector take up only about two square feet of space & is a very good time saver as well. And this is Starsan;
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/star-san.html
And PBW cleaner that can soak about anything clean;
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/pbw-by-five-star.html
 
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