Bottle Label Removing

White Haus Brews

White Haus Brews

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I don't know why it took me so long to do this but tonight I made my own PBW then soaked a couple cases of bottles I've been dreading removing the commercial labels from. After soaking for a few hours some labels had completely fell off by themselves and the others came right off too.

My past process has been a soak in hot water for 15min and then peel and scrub away at them until my arm went numb and repeat.

If anyone else is just gritting their teeth to get through removal, I'm here to tell you there is a better way! :p
 
they have a long thread at at homebrewtalk, this is whats popular there Sun Oxygen cleaner, Seventh Generation powdered dishwasher detergent, and Red Devil TSP
 
That's interesting looked up Red Devil TSP it says Do Not Use On Glass... But I guess if you blend it with these other products it's safe??
 
It's the silicates in the mix - they'll etch glass. And I think they're talking about use in the dish washer - at very high heat. Used reasonably and rinsed thoroughly, it won't hurt the glass at all. Any percarbonate-based cleaner without fragrance or soap makes a fine brewery cleaner.
 
Yeah I just ended up mixing oxy and tsp (75/25 mix), left the dish detergent out of the mix for now but I'll consider adding it if needed
 
So far I have just left the commercial labels on the bottles, going to give this a go, thanks for posting
 
I bought 1/4" multi colored stickers, the color represents the beer, I just stick it on the cap
 
I found some address labels with removable adhesive on Amazon - made bottle reuse a lot easier!
 
Yeah I haven't been putting new labels on just removing commercial ones. Though I've heard of you print a homemade label on regular paper you can stick it in with a little milk which is intriguing.
 
For my crown seal bottles I use different coloured caps , with my swingtops either coloured dots or single letter in texta .
Yes PBW gets most labels off very well
 
CT said:
So far I have just left the commercial labels on the bottles, going to give this a go, thanks for posting
Click to expand...

I did notice that there are some labels (I had some stone brewing bottles) that have more of a plastic sticker than a paper label with glue where this didn't work but those were easy enough just to peel off with my hands.
 
I was just able to peel the label off with my fingers once I was able to get a tiny piece off the glass. Maybe the soak did do something then :p
 
I soaked in warm pbw first , used razor blade to lift a corner and could peel the label off but the glue was annoying me so I binned them
 
Soaking with a bit of dishwasher powder really helps to kill some of the adhesives used. I add a label to my bottles with the milk trick. They're suprisingly durable in most scenarios and actually take a fair bit of soaking with straight water. Though they come off in no time with dishwasher powder.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fJ0IkIeIj-ONAuMTc09UN9ewUjvHhYJyzg/view
 
I had 7 cases of Deschutes bottles, and those labels are paper. Dunked in soapy water for 10 minutes and they peel right off. A scotch brite pad in the same soapy basin and the glue scrubs off rather easily. Now I also have 7 cases of Goose Island bottles. Those are a completely different story. Those are like a vinyl sticker, with a very even application of adhesive. My best luck with them was peeling them label off as I drank them, and then wiping them down with acetone to get the adhesive off. I'll try the PBW soak and see what happens thanks for the tip.
 
Lil guy said:
I had 7 cases of Deschutes bottles, and those labels are paper. Dunked in soapy water for 10 minutes and they peel right off. A scotch brite pad in the same soapy basin and the glue scrubs off rather easily. Now I also have 7 cases of Goose Island bottles. Those are a completely different story. Those are like a vinyl sticker, with a very even application of adhesive. My best luck with them was peeling them label off as I drank them, and then wiping them down with acetone to get the adhesive off. I'll try the PBW soak and see what happens thanks for the tip.
Click to expand...

Yeah if those are anything like three stone brewing bottles there may have been some benefit to the soak but mostly just had to peel off by hand and the adhesive was still very much intact. Good luck!
 
Goo-gone will take off the adhesive but that starts to get into the too much effort range when a case of bottles costs $12.
 
The biggest thing keeping me from working on this was the volume of bottles that I have that need to have the commercial labels removed. I decided to take it a little at a time. All of the bottles that I have, so far, have the plastic/vinyl labels, which for the most part come off by hand without soaking. I have been soaking the bottles in water/TSP mixture, and for the most part the adhesive is coming off quite easily. I have a couple of buckets, soaking 16 bottles at a time.
 
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