Bottling is the bane of most homebrewers’ existences. Apparently. Mel and I don’t very much mind it, ourselves; we can bottle a 5-gallon batch of beer in under 45 minutes, and I almost think the process itself makes us love each other more. There something very sensual about watching a woman fill empty bottles with beer, and few things make me feel manlier than smashing down on those caps with our bottle capper.

I have no clue what Ray thinks is so “sensual.” I sit on a stool from his office when I fill the bottles, so I kind of look like I’m milking a cow. I haven’t been brave enough to try the bottle capper yet, simply because I have visions of a full bottle of beer flying across the kitchen floor as my hand slips and loses the grip. Maybe someday though.

So long, that is, as we have a clean set of bottles to work with. If the bottle supply is low, though, we need to dip into our supply of labeled bottles, which means an extra hour of hot water and scrubbing before we can even begin.

The best way to clean the labels off of bottles is to run them through the dishwasher, stopping it just before it hits the heated dry cycle. In theory, this should leave the labels soggy and the glue soft, allowing you to remove them with a scrubby sponge and bit of elbow grease, but in practice, some breweries’ labels will come off easily, while others will all but break my strength in an epic contest of will and adhesion. Here are some of the best and worst labels to have to remove:

Best:

• Dogfish Head — Like removing a wet band-aid
• Heavy Seas — The paper turns to something resembling oatmeal by the time it comes out of the dishwasher
• Ithaca — I am convinced that Ithaca Beer Company doesn’t use glue and that their labels are held on by nothing more than hope

Worst:

• Weyerbacher — Lamination and rubbery glue combine to clog your garbage disposal and ruin your plastic scrubby pad forever
• Smuttynose — Thick, glossy paper that repels water; glue that acts more like the stains in your microwave; pretty pictures that you kind of feel bad destroying
• River Horse — You’ve got to be kidding me… A front label, a back label, and a neck label?

Homebrewing, Technical 3 Comments »