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Removing Labels

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I'm not sure what they used to adhere these particular labels to the bottles, but I tried a knife eerily similar to the one Soyala uses as well as a spoon and this glue just kind of spread around making it even harder to get off. The Easy Off oven cleaner worked wonders though.
 
Soyala_Amaya said:
...if I DON'T try to accomplish a task with a knife my family thinks I'm sick. My sharp and pointy collection probably needs its own room.
Click to expand...

I have a good number of sharp and pointies too, but also a good crop of scars to go with. I hate being a klutz, I dropped a half-gal carboy last night (dented the linoleum but didn't break!), fluffed up the lees fumbling around with the racking cane yesterday, dropped two pairs of batteries this morning and just now tripped over something that's been in place for at least six months. Hence, spoon.
 
There is a bottling company which actually sells used and sanitized bottles and actually sells them to those who are interested with it.

Though the problem is that they are attaching a similar label right by the bottom side of the bottle that is quite tricky to take off as it leaves that sticky residue.

So it has to be manual removed which could take a very long time. Though considering what is made is just for personal consumption, that should be just right.
 
Two days ago I put roughly 100 bottles into the tub with a $1 container of off-brand sodium per-carbonate from the dollar store...I forgot to see how big it was, but the size of the container was roughly the size of a cottage cheese container. I soaked the bottles over night, the scrubbed and scraped all the labels off.

Quite a few beer labels were floating when I got to the tub, and most of the rest just slipped off in my hand. Every once in a while the beer bottles would need a swipe with my scrubbie (round plastic soft thing) the get the last of the glue residue off.

Most of the wine labels still required pulling for the top layer, but the bottom layer on many could now be scrubbed off instead of scraped. Some still required scraping, then hard scrubbing...and one is in the sink soaking again because it is a stubborn SOB.

All in all, was done delabeling 100 misc bottles in about an hour. Not bad.

Today, I had an equal number of bottles in the same tub with 3 qts of bleach. We will see how it stacks up!
 
The bathtub is great when I'm doing a ton of bottles! I can lay them all over on their sides, it fits about 100 bottles, drains itself, and I have to wash it once a month or so anyway for tub scum. It's not where I SANITIZE my bottles, but for a mass exodus of labels like this, it's amazing!
 
Alright, just finished scrubbing and scraping all my other bottles...bleach is not NEAR as effective a delabling agent as oxy-clean.

There were very few floating labels when I wiggled the bottles in the tub. Almost NONE came off in one piece, I had to take most labels off in strips that left white gunk on the bottle. And I think only the guinness and the angry orchard hard ciders didn't have to be wiped down or scrubbed to get the glue residue off. I had to use the knife a LOT more, and on regular beer bottles to boot.

My interpretation, the oxyclean actually affected the glue, hence why there was little wiping and scrubbing, and many labels just let go on their own overnight. The bleach only affected the paper labels, causing them to disintegrate and made my job a lot harder.

Neither one touched the screen printed bottles, and neither the bleach, oxy clean, or vinegar (only tried on this one bottle) touched the glue from the freaking Loco #1 from Brooklyn. That one I just wound up throwing away along with the case I opened and discovered they were all corona's (screen printed).

All in all, a productive weekend, and an end to the debate. Soak most bottles over night with oxy-clean (sodium per-carbonate) and the labels are pretty easy to get off.
 
Soyala, thanks for the info. I may put this to the test next time I see oxy-clean on sale and have a big enough batch to take over the laundry tub... (I usually use a bucket and soak 7 at a time in hot soapy water, tried it in the laundry tub once and since it's in the basement the soap bubbles foamed out the floor drain!)

 
Chevette Girl said:
Soyala, thanks for the info. I may put this to the test next time I see oxy-clean on sale and have a big enough batch to take over the laundry tub... (I usually use a bucket and soak 7 at a time in hot soapy water, tried it in the laundry tub once and since it's in the basement the soap bubbles foamed out the floor drain!)
Click to expand...

Use oxy-clean to soak beer, wine and champagnes bottles in basement wash tubs all the time.
 
Well, I didn't use oxy-clean, I used dollar store Amazing Oxygen Cleaner! (or something like that) It's all sodium per-carbonate, and I did take a look at the container afterwards. It was 16 ozs of Amazing! to the tub vs 3 qts of bleach. I probably could have used less than the whole 16 ozs, which I'll see next time I acquire a crap ton of bottles that need to be delabeld. Yknow, I'll actually read the label or something and see how much they recommend per gallon :P
 
skunkboy said:
Oxyclean works great on most stuff, but some things (like BNektar bottles) which have a plastic coating on them don't get enough exposure to come off nice and easy...
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I usually don't have any problems with the B Nektar bottles. If they are too much work for you Skunkboy save them for me, I like using 375's.
 
I've gotten to the newer labels, but they've been peeling off pretty easily leaving just a little residue around the edge. I did have one stubborn Zombie Killer bottle, but since I haven't used any of the 500 ml bottles it can sit around until I need it.
 
The bath is a brilliant idea. DW regularly bleaches it...
Does anybody know of an oxyclean analogue available down under?
<off topic>
It's funny, Meadhers so often want to make 'old school' stuff, whether it be Viking labels, old English spelling, there's often a tribute to mead being ancient.
Having a US company use sensible metric quantities is mildly disturbing! I'm usually right behind the metrication of the US, but this feels a touch weird ;-)
Personally, I like a UK pint. Because I can call it a pint ;-) (even though I measure it in ml)
</off topic>
 
I'm pretty sure the Corona labels are "baked on" enamels, and I've not found any reliable way of removing them either. I just don't bother to re-use Corona bottles. As I can't stand the swill, personally, I don't usually end up with many Corona empties anyway. ;)
 
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