Peeling labels

I'm new to brewing ( just into my third batch). But tonight at the grocery store I caught myself picking out what beer to buy based on how easy the labels come off. Sierra nevada and new Belgium seem to come off very easy. Anyways maybe this post should be somewhere else like drunk ramblings but oh well!

 

Oxiclean is your friend. Soak your bottles in a bucket with some oxiclean overnight and the labels will be gone in the morning.

 

Interestingly enough I have the most trouble with SN bottles when using Oxiclean. They are one of the only bottles that leave that gunky residue behind. But a quick swipe of a wet paper towel and they are clean as a whistle. Worth it for the cool bottles (and good relatively cheap beer).

 

Water an a used scotch brite pad will take that SN glue right off!

 

30 minutes in a pbw bath does the trick for me

 

yeah I try and stay ahead on the bottle cleaning. I go to the bars that serve lots of import beers and pick up the bottles there. drop them in a rubermaid tub of PBW for a day or 2 and then wash and dry them before using them.

 

Cha-ching!

 

I have about 10 cases of squeaky clean 12oz Fat Tire bottles, and 2 cases of 22oz Sam Adams bottles. I like using the same bottles, as they are all the same height, so they stack better. Both of those brands delabel really well with hot water only, overnight, or however long you want.

The Sam Adams 22s are my favorite larger bottle, and even when I'm kegging, I'm probably still going to bottle in those.

 

I've noticed that Dogfish Head labels come off very easy with minimal soaking in plain water.

 

I found a good idea by rad rabbit in another thread. I go a 3G stock pot with 2.5G of water to a heavy simmer (elec stove). The Paulaner labels came off in 8-12 seconds! The Michelob amber bock's came of in a min or 2. The hardest were the US micro brew labels,like Great Lakes & Rogue. I cooked those for 15mins. Still had to scrape.
Good thing I had mostly Paulaner bottles. Since some bottles weren't rinsed after drinking,I'll still have to use the bottle brush & PBW. I was thinkin of using Rubbing alcohol & a scotch brite pad to get the glue residue off.?...

 

I filled up my bottling bucket (6.5gal capacity) with about 5 gallons of hot water from the tap and added two scoops of OxyClean last night. Got up this morning and the labels were floating at the top. I got approx. a case worth of bottles in the bucket. I will be running these through the dishwasher without soap just to rinse them off tonight. Then put them through StarSan mix about an hour or so before actual bottling. I'm only bottling a 2.5 gal batch so it won't be much work.