I have had no luck getting plastic labels (from Highland Brewery in Asheville) I have soaked the bottles for two weeks in 4 gallons with 4:1 mixture of Oxiclean and TSP. I have even added extra Oxi
when the first week went by and labels remained. One week later nada, so I added Washing soda a little more than 1/2 Tablespoon per gallon.
I have read about using ammonia but prefer not to, as the afore mentioned mix has worked before
I also am not too thrilled at the prospect of using bleach.
I am tempted to put it all on the stove for a boil to see if that helps.
Anyone ever tried boiling or have any other suggestions? I don’t want to buy PBW that is why I bought the Oxiclean.
Pilsner Urquell bottles have a plastic like label. I remove these by a short soak in hot water, then peel off while still warm. PBW removes the glue along with the use of a scrubby.
The plastic protects the glue from most chemical agents - you probably won’t be able to soak these off the way you can with paper labels. If you soak them on hot water the glue might soften enough that you can peal off the labels with help from a razor. After the plastic is gone, then you can try the soaps or chemicals to clean off residual glue.
I find the best thing to do with plastic labels is to peel them off slowly by hand with no soaking at all. If they are very fresh, you can do it. Otherwise, the label comes off but the glue stays. If that happens, I recycle.
Some label adhesives these days are not water soluable. Many of these can be easily pulled off or peeled with a razor blade after just a few seconds with hot water in the bottles ( I use water from our instahot in the kitchen sink and actually can use this same water for about three labels by pouring from one bottle to another using a small funnel). As noted by others above, many of the plastic labels can be simply, carefully pulled off without soaking. Some will stretch and distort, but most will come off.
