Anyone have a good suggestion for peeling off....

[matth76]

beer labels on bottles? I'm thinking about putting together a collage of beer labels glued onto a piece of cardboard. I was wandering if anyone had any suggestions for peeling of the labels without tearing them. Any ideas? Thanks!

Cheers!

[steveh]

Fill up your sink, or bath tub, with water and soak the bottles for a while and the labels should slide right off. Don't be impatient, it may take a few hours.

Lay 'em on a flat surface to dry and you should have a perfect label.

You may also want to contact your fave brewery to see if they'll send you new labels (pre bottling), many of them do.

S.

[matth76]

Ahhh, the key is not to be impatient! Thanks for the advice. I'll save a bunch at a time and do it all at once.

Cheers!

[Seymour]

For the more stubborn labels, make sure it's warm water and add a little dish detergent. It doesn't usually fade the labels, but tends to loosen those that are well attached. I soaked off a bunch just last night that way.

BTW--ever noticed that, usually, labels on imports come off more easily than American microbrews? I guess it's different glues...

[corysdad]

I soak as many bottles as will fit in a 5 gal. bucket and usually leave them for a week or so. Like steveh said alot of labels will just fall off.

[steveh]

Originally posted by corysdad
Just hold them over your trash bin when you scrape them, you wouldn't want that stuff going into the drain.

Matt's lookin' to save 'em, though. It's been a long time since I saved bottles for home-brewing, but I don't remember having any so stubborn that I had to scrape residue - maybe Huber used inferior glue? ;)

S.

[Arassuil]

I gave the warm water/dishsoap method a try on a couple stubborn labels that seemed to have been put on with contact cement. It worked for one, but the second disintegrated. I have a few more to try...

[BikeNBrew]

Matt's lookin' to save 'em, though. It's been a long time since I saved bottles for home-brewing, but I don't remember having any so stubborn that I had to scrape residue - maybe Huber used inferior glue? ;)

S.
Hah! Steve, I wonder how many homebrewers are still using their Huber bottles and cases from long ago? I know I am, though most of you have gone to kegs, it seems. When I was in college at MSU in the early nineties, you could get a case of Huber Bock or Rhinelander at the local grocery for six bucks plus deposit. I still bottle all my beer, and have about twelve cases of those bottles around. Those cases are great, and it's too bad no one seems to make them anymore.