removing bottle labels

I soak in oxyclean then will sit there with a razor blade and scrape it off. Most come off pretty smooth, then will run an old towel over it to get the little fuzzy pieces.

 

Odd never had any that needed a razor after OXI.

Why do people spell it OXY?

 

Sorry , thought everyone knew what it meant. self addresses stamped envelope. If you e-mail and ask many won't bother but if you take the time to stick an envelope with your addie and a stamp with a note inside inside an evelope sent to them asking nicely most will send because you put the effort into it.
I guess I'm the only one here who used to do it in the 60's for decals and hot rod stickers from places like STP and all the racing teams.

 

Good article pretty much sums it up except for one point. Keeping bottles on hand until you figure out which method will be best for removing the labels. I've use wine label stickers successfully for most labels but anything vinyl either stretches or removes colors from the label. Anything foil like Avery's labels, dissolve in oxiclean. Heavy paper labels like DFH are great for soaking, color holds well, labels come off in under 10 minutes and they dry pretty well with the help of a dish towel pressing them to stay flat, Sam Adams remove very well too with soaking. I tend to buy new beers in pairs and I don't chuck them until I get one of the labels off in good enough shape for my collection.

 

I have recently just removed 60+ labels by just filling up one side of the kitchen sink with hot water, and liquid soap. All I did was fill the bottle with the warm water(so it would sink), then let them soak for +-1hr. There were about 5% that gave me a hassle, so I just tossed them in the trash. Good Luck!

 

And how about painted labels? Any thought? A super sticker that sucks the paint from the bottle to the sticker or something?

 

I'm afraid you're S.O.L. for collecting labels from painted bottles. Save the bottle or take a pic for the scrapbook.

 

i find 30 seconds in the microwave helps for the ones that dont come off from soaking

 

I hope I'm overlooking something when I say this: I've used oxyclean and other soaks to remove labels. The labels aren't anything I'd want to save. Granted, I usually scrape them off with a knife, but the label itself is going to be shot after the soak. If you're wanting to preserve the label, I'd look elsewhere, or as suggested above, ask the brewery for a fresh cut.

 

I thought people used a hair dryer for this. What is with all these strange time consuming soaking methods?!

 

Does anybody know how likely the s.a.s.e. for a label works? What are the best ways to do this, i.e. who to send it to, what to say, etc?

 

Brewers seem to hate them - people request labels from keg-only, painted label bottle and can-only breweries, ask for them via email, claim that they're fans of beers that aren't distributed in their area, etc. Mostly it seems if you throw in a coupla bucks as well as the sase you'll probably get some stuff.

 

Most breweries use a strong glue, so soaking in hot soapy water usually won't work. Use half a cup of Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda in a bucket of hot water. Fill the bottles with water so they don't float in the bucket - put them in the bucket for about 5 minutes - if you leave them in too long the colors might fade. The labels should come right off easily. If the colors fade after only 5 minutes, use dishwashing liquid instead - usually breweries that use cheap paper use cheap glue too so that should work. When the labels are off the bottles, and they're almost dry, they tend to curl up so get silicone release paper, put the label between 2 sheets , iron it for a few seconds on cotton setting and put a book or two on top of it to keep it flat while it cools off. Through trial and error, this works best for me..

 

I have a question that I can't find an answer to anywhere on the internet. Does anybody know the reason for neck labels ? I soak off the main label from the bottles of beer after I drink them but not the neck label and I just can't understand the purpose of that label. Obviously they do have a purpose or breweries wouldn't spend the money to make them and attach them to the bottles.

 

I use a significant amount of baking soda, not washing soda or oxyclean, and it gets 90% of the labels off intact without doing anything visual to them. There are a few bottles with different adhesives it doesn't work well on, but it nails most of them. I also, of course, use very, very hot water.

 

What about for the labels that are not glue based but more sticker-like? For example, Half Acre's labels are a sticker that they slap on and are basically impossible to get off.

 

Try heating the bottle in the microwave for 30-40 seconds, then carefully peel it off. Be sure to have a piece of paper handy on which to stick the label because it will bring the glue with it.

 

Great! Thanks!

 

Aesthetics?

 

This is just a guess but when bottles were returnable and reused the retail stores may have stored the returned empty bottles from multiple breweries in an upright position in old cases, and when you look down on a case of bottles you can't read the labels to be able to separate them to go back to the correct brewery. Neck labels are readable in that kind of storage situation.