Label Removal Experiment

[drbell]

I have decided to put labels on my beer to identify them, as well as making them look good. I want to minimise the effort to remove them, while having them look as good as possible when they are on.

Having researched labels on this forum and the rest of the web I have decided to conduct a simple experiment. The full details are on my blog: http://bellsbeer.wordpress.com/ including a picture and initial observations but I am mentioning it here in an attempt to provide something useful as this forum has provided me with so much help as I start brewing.

In short, I have attached labels to bottles in 6 different ways:
# sticker attached to a wet bottle
# sticker attached to dry bottle (the control sticker)
# sticker which has been stuck to a jumper several times to remove some of the stickyness
# sticker with addition of glue from a glue stick
# plain paper attached using glue stick
# plain paper attached with milk (tip from this forum)

I have made initial observations and will now leave them for a week before judging them first on appearance, and then on how easily the labels come off after soaking them in warm soapy water. I will report the findings back here as well as on my blog.

[daveyk]

I've not experiemented but I did put some labels on some of the beers I gave away at Christmas.... i'm now finding that as I have 2 brews conditioning and more to follow, it is a good idea to keep things labeled.

From Ebay I managed to get hold of some inkjet printer labels, not Avery but Avery compatible. Printing them was a breeze.

I did find that to get them to stick, i did it straight away when bringing them in from the cold... the condensation soon builds up and stops them sticking.... however it is this same condensation that allows easy removal once the drinking is done.

If the labels are not removed with the condensation and are left again to dry, a little soaking usually brings them straight off.

Dave.

[CyberPaddy66]

We use plain paper and pritt stick, labels come off with hot water

[MickyD]

Yep like CP I use a Pritt Stick, but I use some cheap matte photo paper as its a bit thicker, and the colours show up better than normal paper.