The best way to get labels off beer bottles is by...

Sunday, April 2, 2017

The best way to get labels off beer bottles is by... putting them in the dishwasher.

It's that simple.

soaking beer labels to remove themNow you can get on with easily bottling your beer.

Wait. 

You don't believe me?

Trust me, I've considered how to remove labels from beer and wine bottles before.

I had ideas along the lines of giving the bottles a good old overnight soak in products such as sodium percarbonate, powdered Brewery Wash, ammonia and even baking soda.

I'd even contemplated using steam from a kettle.

And they all work to a certain degree but all involve labour and mess and scrubbing to various degrees.

But using the dish washer makes peeling off labels so easy!

Here's how I discovered this most obvious solution to a problem that frustrates many brewers. 


I was rinsing the dishes last night and on the window ledge above me was a bottle with a label that I'd placed their the night before - and it had label I knew was going to be a real pain to remove as I'd suffered through that brand before (Boundary Road from NZ). 

A soak would not be enough, some firm scrubbing was going to be required.

Sigh.

So as I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, on a whim I placed the bottle into the dishwasher and let it do it's thing. I was thinking about that steaming idea. You know how people apparently use to open letters by using the steam from a kettle as the glue would soften? That's the idea.

Now, I'm the kind of guy that likes to have the dish washer emptied before I go to bed so I don't have to empty it in the morning.

So I opened it up when the wash was through and the first thing I noticed was the brown bottle, with the label 9/10 removed and slipping down the bottle.

The dishwasher trick had worked!

I was able to quickly peel off the label while the bottle was still warm from the heat of the dish-washing process. There was a little bit of residual glue on the glass. A quick scrub with the dish-washing brush and it was removed. Not a challenge at all.

The easiest removal of a beer bottle label I'd ever done.

So now I'm convinced.

No more soaking bottles with chemicals for me. When I need to remove the labels, I'll simply use the dishwasher to help. This will also have the benefit of helping clean the bottles (not so much the inside maybe) and at the very least, the heat of the dish washer will help sanitize and even sterilize the bottles too.

Off course for those without a dishwasher, soaking is still going to be the best way to peel those labels off!
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