I normally do oxyclean, but if i really have one thats a pain in the ass go for the ammonia. You can get it at the dollar store and works better than anything else ive tried.
Pour a 1/4 of a small bottle of ammonia in a 5 gal bucket 3/4 full of warm water. Yes the aroma will knock you on your…but might bring you around from your 3 Saisons you just downed. Overnight this should remove most labels and is very cheap. Has pretty much always worked for me, and I’m really cheap! I can do 14 bottles at a time this way. Salud!
This is what I do as well except I use one of those paint scrappers with a 5 inch razor blade to scrape off the labels. I am yet to find a label that will not remove.
Most of my bottles are from New Belgium or Sam Adams. I soak them in PBW and hot water for about an hour, and the labels float off. If I used amonia, I’d end up in the ER on a respirator. Just saying.
Paul
I fill a container with plain ol’ hot water and let 'em soak over night. Most labels I’ve worked with come off just fine using that method, except Brooklyn. Those are the worst.
New Belgium labels come off very easily, leaving a very manageable glue residue (a brush with nylon bristles takes it right off). The company name is cast right into the glass, which doesn’t bother me, although it might bother some.
New Belgium bottles are s h i t e though, they usually have little crack looking lines in the necks of the bottles. I got scars from a time when the bottle neck broke when I opened one of my homebrews a couple years ago. I don’t use NB bottles anymore, needless to say.
I do a hot water and oxyclean soak overnight. Sam Adams bottles are my favorite, the labels fall right off. Sammy Smith’s labels usually fall right off also and those bottles are awesome and heavy duty.
red hooks long hammer ipa is the easiest to remove out of alot of brands that i’ve tried. cool looking bottles as well, kinda like a taller,thinner sierra nevada.
+1
Not worth any extra effort for standard bottles if that doesn’t work. Usually works within the hour actually.
[quote=“paultuttle”] If I used amonia, I’d end up in the ER on a respirator. Just saying.
Paul[/quote]
That is why I suggested doing it outside.
It’s very effective for stubborn labels and glue, but completely unnecessary for labels that are easy to remove.
if they dont come off easily with a quick soak in pbw or oxyclean they are not worth messing with IMO. My soak are maybe an hour at the most and they slide right off, if they dont they go in the trash
After I posted earlier, I was trying to think of the beer label that I always see floating in the cooler after the ice melts, and that’s totally it. Too bad they don’t make 12 oz bottles and that so many of them are clear.
And, thanks for the warning about New Belgium bottles!
I use one step in hot water and the labels usually fall right off.
I generally only have 1 or 2 beers a night, so my routine is to give them a good rinse right after I pour them. The next day I rinse with dish soap and hit them with a bottle brush. After I rinse the soap out I put them in the sink and let them fill with a trickle of hot tap water (mine gets really hot, close to 150F). As long as it’s just a trickle when the bottle fills the water will start to cascade over the side. After about 10 minutes or so I’ll peel the label off and scrub off the residue with a blue (non-scratching) Scotch-Brite pad. Any bottles where the label doesn’t come right off get put aside and get a soak in hot Oxi-Clean or PBW when it gets close to bottling day.
By the way, thanks for starting a post about whose labels are easy/hard to peel. I’ve been looking for a list like this. Here’s what we have so far:
Easy to peel: Samuel Smith, Red Hook, Sierra Nevada, Samuel Adams, New Belgium (warning - possible cracks), Bell’s, Guinness Draught (11.2oz bottle), Three Floyds, Goose Island, Schells, Deschutes, and I’ll add Bass Ale, Ommegang and Saranac here
Hard to peel: Brooklyn, Summit, Founders, Firestone, Shorts, Mad Anthony, Blue Mountain, Weyerbacher and I’ll add Dark Horse and Harpoon
BTW any bottle can fail, even the better ones. All of mine are Sam Adams recycles and while bottling last night I lost a valued member of my future case o Pale ale when I snapped the neck off of one. I hated to pour that one out!!!
I dump a scoop of oxyclean in the leftover starsan from brew day, let em sit overnight or longer then scrape and hit it with a SS scrubber. Most of them fall clean off. Some are easy to scrape and scrub and the ones that are a PITA I just recycle… not worth the hassle.
The other surefire method is to create a ring of nonbrewing beer drinkers. When I was getting started I told my coworkers that for each case of empty bombers they gave me, I’d give them three full ones. Had 4 cases in the first month.
Also +1 to kegging. No peeling EVAR!
Genius…
I suppose I left out that I made them remove the labels.
Lapin Kulta, Karhu and Olvi slip right off after only a minute or two of soaking. Most German beers and Finnish microbrews take a bit longer soak, and I don’t bother trying to save bottles from Russia: lacquer-coated labels, really solid glue, and cheap thin bottles. :lol:
Ahhhhh this is so genius! Make the minions do the work! That’s it. That’s what I’m doing.
This thread has turned out fantastic!
Have you ever tried to cap summit bottles? I’ve tried and can’t get them to cap. The bottle neck tapers too quickly and my capper won’t work.
