OK, I’m probably beating a dead horse here, but I would really appreciate tips to optimize the horrible bottle cleaning process. What’s the BEST product to soak off labels, etc.
What I do now:
rinse bottle after drinking it.
soak in oxi
soak in star san
But when I soak the bottles in oxi or something similar, I really have to push them under water and let the oxygen escape, and afterwards I have to empty the bottles by hand to make sure they are really empty before I soak them in star san. Same with star san step. It’s boring and labor intensive. Is there really no better way (that can be expressed without using the word ‘keg’)?
I typically rinse bottles when I’m done drinking with them, then set them aside. Once I’ve got enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket, I soak them in hot water and PBW for an hour or two. Labels slide right off after that, then I rinse them under hot water, let them dry, then box them up. I handle sanitizing them whenever I bottle.
heat sterilizing is a great way to go. far easier than submergeing in star san in my opinion. put them in the over the night before bottling and bake at 350f for 30 minutes or so then turn the oven off and leave them over night to cool. If yo uput them in a cold oven and let them cool over night you won’t get much breakage. you’ll lose one once in a while but I figure that one was weak to begin with.
in terms of removeing labels. oxiclean/PBW is the easiet way but it does mean you have to soak, then rinse well. And some labels just won’t come off. I have implemented a list of common brands that use a glue that is easy to remove (such as Sierra Nevada or North Coast) or a label that comes off cleanly with no soaking.
Bottles I emptied myself:
Rinse thoroughly after drinking.
If they’re labeled commercial bottles, see second method.
On bottling day, spray inside with starsan. Spray top with starsan too.
Bottle.
Cap.
Relax while the beer carbonates.
Bottles donated by sympathisers
Rinse thoroughly and wince at the thick mats of mould growing in most of them.
Soak in tub with Oxi.
Peel off labels. Curse 8Wired’s, Thornbridge’s and a handful of other’s woefully sadistic choice of label glue. Pray thanks to Brewdog and their easy-peel stickers.
Set aside till bottling day.
Spray inside with starsan and continue rest of first procedure.
It’s still the single most off-putting step in the brewing process.
Removing labels is a PITA, but once it’s done you don’t have to bother with it again when you start using it for homebrew. I use an Oxiclean soak for labels, but otherwise it isn’t part of my regular cleaning process.
Unlabeled bottles simply get rinsed repeatedly in hot water until no residue/foam/aroma remains. I eyeball the bottom of the bottle to ensure that there is no caked-on sediment. Usually there’s not, but I hit it with a bottle brush if needed. Rinsed bottles are stored upside-down or in a covered box until bottling time.
For bottling, I use the anti-bacterial setting on my dishwasher to sanitize my bottles and a small cup of starsan to sanitize my caps.
The easier option would be to buy empty bottles from a homebrew shop but that seems unnecessary as most of us create empty bottles with too much ease.
I’m pretty lazy about label removal. I tend to run my bottles through the dishwasher after consuming the contents (they are rinsed and sanitized before refilling) which has about a 30% success rate at removing labels. Otherwise I tend not to remove labels these days. I go through spurts where I do the whole oxy soak and peel them off but it’s not a high priority for my time. My bottles get blank caps that I identify with a code written on with a sharpie so it makes no difference whether there is a label on the bottle.
I have no great love bottling but after I bought a 7.00 bottle washing attachment that shoots pressurized water into the bottles I started hating it less.
I also use a bottle tree with a sprayer that shoots starsan into each bottle. I store my bottles in a fast rack tray.
I just started kegging and it is easier but kegging had its own issues such as having a kegerator and Co2 tanks ect…
The few times I have used bottles with labels I used a plastic scraper and hot soapy water and if it didn’t all come off I either recycled it or let multiple washings take care of it eventually.
I rinse out the sediment after each use, fill with water and oxyclean and leave on the counter until we do dishes. They get washed in soapy water, drip dry upside down, then stored when they are dry.
Bottling day is now easy: fill sink with sanitizer solution, sanitize bottle rack, dunk, shake and empty, put on rack.
Rinse bottle well after beer has been consumed, drain and then use a small square of foil to cover the bottle top.
The bottles are then stored in boxes until bottling day.
On bottling day I use a vinator filled with starsan to sanitise and they are drained on a bottle tree.
As for labels; some I remove and some I don’t…depends on where the beer is going to end up. I like to give nice, clean unlabelled bottles to friends to try.
Yup, a soak in Oxyclean will float most labels right off. I find the bargain brand (Sun-oxy) works just as well. I don’t use it on the inside unless there’s dried crud in there. Get a vinator (shoots starsan into upside-down bottle). 17$-20$ very well spent. Also, +1 on the Fast Rack system.
Why bother removing labels? I used to spend all that time removing labels and just decided to go and buy stickers from office supply store. Print out some information on it like name (or what your brewery would be called ) and brew then past over the top of the commercial label.
The only time I remove labels now is if for some reason I have to soak a bottle because it will not clean up from a hot pressure rinse.
Just be sure to push away from yourself at all times. I can showy ou some scars that prove it is a valid rule. :
Most labels came off with a good OxyClean, PBW or Straight-A soak. User as hot of water you can get out of the tap and let them sit for a day or two. Leinenkugel bottles were the worst for me. Most of the craft brewers labels would just fall off.
For already used bottles I’m in the rinse well after pouring and eye ball the inside for gunk camp.
One man’s boring pain is another man’s therapy. I currently have 6 csses of empty 12s ready to go. But when I run low I start stocking up. Then I dedicate a crappy weather day to the process. I have a couple bus boy tubs that fit a half case each. Hot oxy soak takes the labels and glue off. Quick inside scrub with a bottle brush. Hot water soak/rinse. Starsan dip. Then drip dry on a bottle tree. Box upside down in plastic coated cardboard cases for storage. In a day I can do 6 or 8 cases which is plenty for my needs.
I scored a half dozen cases of 22’s from a brewery that appeared to use a wax based glue. It was nice in that the label came off with just a hot soak, but the wax itself was a total PIA.