How to effectively remove bottle labels!

[homebrewbeliever]

The way that I've figured out involves soaking the bottles in a hot bath (~180-190 degrees F) of water with a mixture of baking soda, PBW (or bleach-free oxyclean), and borax. All of these cleaners are readily available and quite inexpensive. Using this method, I've found that about 75% of all beer labels literally fall off the bottle, and the rest are easy to peel off with tongs. As far as wine labels are concerned, about 50% of the labels fall off and the other half require a little scrubbing and scraping (It must have something to do with the adhesive type they use on some wine bottles, but I'm not quite sure).

For this process you will need the following:
A large cooler with a lid (50+ quarts is best, especially if its wide and shallow)
PBW, bleach-free oxyclean, or an equivalent product (about 1 tablespoon for every 4 quarts of cooler size)
Baking Soda (about 2 tablespoons for every 4 quarts of cooler size)
Borax (about 1/4 cup for every 4 quarts of cooler size)
Tongs
Strainer
Lots of very hot water, ~180-190 degrees F
A sponge with an abrasive side
A separate pot or bucket of warm water for rinsing adhesive off
A bottle tree (this is not a necessity, but it sure makes things a LOT easier)
Alright, let's get to it:

First, heat your water. You will need enough water to nearly fill your cooler, so measure appropriately. Next, add your measured PBW, baking soda, and borax into the cooler. Stir the solution until all of the particulates are dissolved. Fill the cooler about 3/4 full, add your bottles, and arrange the bottles in the cooler. I've found that its easiest to use long BBQ tongs to submerge the bottles so they fill completely. Repeat until you've cannot fill any more bottles, and then add the rest of the hot water. Then, continue to fill and place the bottles in the cooler until you cannot completely submerge any more bottles.

Close the lid, sit back and have a few beers! It takes about an hour to an hour and a half for the labels to loosen. You'll know the labels have loosened because they will easily come off of the bottles with tongs. Some labels literally fall right off the bottles!

Once you remove the label, scrub the bottle in the wash water! Put your bottles on your bottle tree, or place them on a towel to dry. Use a strainer to skim out the gross parts!

Once you're done, you can refill the cooler with more bottles and repeat the process. Once you've finished, its time to wash em! I take them to the bath tub and fill it partway with hot water and PBW.

Soak them in the bath for a few minutes, scrub them with a sponge, and then shake 'em a bit. This is just to make sure that you get out all of the residual paper and adhesive bits off of your bottles.

Once you've got them all on the rack, you can technically just let them dry and call it quits. However, I find that PBW leaves a residual film on the bottles, and I prefer the look of a clean and shiny bottle! So, I like to rinse them after they've dried a little bit from the PBW bath.

Put them on the rack to dry, and you're done!

 

[Double_D]

I'd say a day or two in star san is even easier than reading all that. And the plus side if you get lazy and let it sit for about a week, you'll even be able to wipe the paint off your Stone bottles.

 

[Richardhead]

All I do is soak them in PBW for a few hours and the labels slide off then finish them in the dishwasher.

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

2.5 gallons of as-hot-as-it-gets-from-the-tap water, 4 (FOUR yes) measures of Oxy-clean. Dunk bottles for 1 hour, labels fall right off.

Any glue residue is removed with a Brillo pad.

MC

 

[jkendrick]

I'm just on my third batch and finally decided to remove the labels. After reading some opinions here, I just created a hot bath of 5 gallons hot water and a scoop of bleach-, perfume- and dye-free OxiClean and most of the labels fell right off. The only exception were some Ska Brewing labels, but they came off without much additional effort.

 

[homebrewbeliever]

I know its possible to simply soak them in PBW, but adding baking soda and borax to the mix really disintegrates adhesives. I had tried simply PBW, and it worked pretty well, but I have found that adding these two other very cheap compounds works far better....

 

[BrewThruYou]

People have trouble removing bottle labels? A light solution of OxyFree in any temperature tap water makes almost all my bottle labels just slide right off.

 

[conpewter]

Cool writeup thank you I've always done the oxyclean soak but if I ever have to remove labels again I'll try throwing in the borax and baking soda, I already have them around anyway.

 

[Supurb]

Boil water pour into a bucket. Add baking soda and mix it in. Soak the bottles for 1-2 hours. Then uses an S.O.S pad or other steel wool. The label will fall right off and the steel wool will remove residue/glue with very little effort. Rinse. Then buy some Beer Labels at www.BeerClings.com and never have to worry about removing labels again.

 

[Double_D]

It's off topic, but the beer clings only come in one style. It's as indicative of it being home made to have a plain bottle as it is to have a generic reusable label that says homebrew on it.

 

[kasky99]

It's off topic, but the beer clings only come in one style. It's as indicative of it being home made to have a plain bottle as it is to have a generic reusable label that says homebrew on it.

I was just thinking the same thing. A reusable lable for your beer isn't a bad idea, but if my only option is a decal that says "homebrew" well hell, I could just go to a store that does custom decals and order my own custom lables in bulk.

Back on topic though, do you think borax by itself would help with the lables? I can get ahold of some of that here in Tokyo at a local "family mart", but I have already looked everywhere for oxy clean and I can't find it anywhere.

 

[Antler]

I use the pink chlorinated cleaner from my lhbs store and it's very very easy. Soak bottles overnight and labels fall off as I pull them out of the solution in the morning. Bottles come out like brand new, all the marks and nicks from bouncing of other bottles are even gone. Don't mind the typo on the label lol

 

[homebrewbeliever]

Back on topic though, do you think borax by itself would help with the lables? I can get ahold of some of that here in Tokyo at a local "family mart", but I have already looked everywhere for oxy clean and I can't find it anywhere.

Borax by itself might do the trick, but if you can add a bit of baking soda, that would help. You can get OxyClean at your local dollar store, if you have one. Just look for something along the lines of "oxygen based cleanser," and make sure you get the one WITHOUT bleach.

 

[barhop2000]

We sell craft beer at our store and have collected literally 100's of bottles from customers to recycle, or clean and sell in the homebrew store.

So, yesterday I started the process of removing labels. I used plain baking soda in hot tap water in our kitchen sink and it worked great! As mentioned above some labels literally fall off within a few minutes, some take 30+ min's, and there's always the "good" labels that are loosened but require some scraping off (was using my fingernail, so was still easy).

We have a common double sided kitchen sink. The size of one side is just over 1 cubic foot, which is approx 7.5 gallons of water. I added 1-1/4 cups of baking soda.

Today, am going to try adding Borax to see if this makes it even easier than it already is, and will use the 1/4 cup per gallon, as suggested above.

Baking Soda and Borax are available at the local grocery store and very inexpensive, and safe. Together they will also do a great job cleaning and deodorizing the sink and drain!