The Experimenter
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- Dec 5, 2020
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Quick question... I've been saving commercial pop top beer bottles for bottling my brews and they have worked great. However, I was wondering if there was a common method for quickly and easily removing the labels? I just want plain, clean, unmarked brown bottles without needing to buy a bunch of empty bottles on Amazon. Of course this is not a dire need; the stuff tastes the same either way, but I just think they'd look nicer.
Most of the ones I encounter are paper labels that tend to tear into tiny scraps if you try to dry peel them off the bottles. I was thinking of soaking them in warm water for a few hours, scrubbing with some steel wool, and then removing any excess glue residue with a solvent (on bottles in which the label does easily peel off, I've used a cloth lightly dampened with Zippo fluid which tends to easily dissolve most if not all of the glue residue... just need a well ventilated area and some gloves).
Would this soak and scrub method work well enough, OR do you suggest a different method? Should I add anything to the water I soak them in? Or should I not soak them? Maybe I should just put hot water in the bottles (keeping the outside dry) so as to heat up and loosen the glue and making them easier to peel?...
Any thoughts on good methods for removing glued on paper labels from beer bottles?
Most of the ones I encounter are paper labels that tend to tear into tiny scraps if you try to dry peel them off the bottles. I was thinking of soaking them in warm water for a few hours, scrubbing with some steel wool, and then removing any excess glue residue with a solvent (on bottles in which the label does easily peel off, I've used a cloth lightly dampened with Zippo fluid which tends to easily dissolve most if not all of the glue residue... just need a well ventilated area and some gloves).
Would this soak and scrub method work well enough, OR do you suggest a different method? Should I add anything to the water I soak them in? Or should I not soak them? Maybe I should just put hot water in the bottles (keeping the outside dry) so as to heat up and loosen the glue and making them easier to peel?...
Any thoughts on good methods for removing glued on paper labels from beer bottles?
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