Used wine bottles

[montrealweb]

I put my recycled bottles with labels in a pail. 6-8 bottles at a time. Fill with Hot water and a scoop of OxyClean, let it soak over night. Don't forget to fill each bottle 3/4 of the way. Most labels come off, some need a little elbow grease. Domenic from MTL.

 

[winemaker81]

Again, new bottles are pretty darn inexpensive.

In my area, 2 cases of bottles, with tax, is $35 USD, half the price of a low end kit.

It may be my upbringing -- my parents grew up during the Great Depression and I was raised avoiding unnecessary expenditures, especially when elbow grease can be used in lieu of money. The idea of putting in a bit of effort instead of buying new bottles in engrained in me. Instead of watching TV, I'm listening to music and cleaning bottles.


Fall of 2019 I was in on a palette purchase of bottles, I bought 10 cases for $10.50 each including tax. I MUCH preferred those bottles to the mismatch I normally have ... but changing your upbringing is difficult.

 

[Scooter68]

Totally agree with you about not being wasteful. Around here I can be picky about the bottles I pickup as recycling center is pretty active and wide open for sorting through the 4 x4 metal bins. The only issue I have now and then are the Bee coming in search of some 'good smell.' And as I said before, if I start early enough, by the time the wine is ready to bottle my only issue is Which set of bottles do I use. I sort through them and if need be mismatch in groups of 5 (Gallons worth) but most times I am able to have enough saved up that it's more a matter of which set of 15 (3 gallon batches) do I want to use for this wine.

 

[Snafflebit]

I am sold on baking the bottles at 250° and peeling. A little Goof Off on a paper towel will wipe off the glue. And the bottles that don’t clean easily chuck ‘em!

 

[CDrew]

ErikM Said "New wine bottles by the case are about $1 per bottle. "

Let me know where you find them at that price including tax and shipping. Lucky to find $1.50 (Green/Amber/Clear flat bottom) Unless you are buying a number of cases - Typically discounts don't start until you hit 5 cases at a time.

Agree with plastic labels and bottles with trash in them but just dried wine - not a big deal.

I get new bottles for $5 per case. Only problem is, you have to pick up at Napa Fermentation, so not practical if you don't live in Northern ca. I bought 50 cases there last summer, have used 30 for bottling the 2019 and a friend bought 10 from me. I no longer de-label bottles.

 

[glennwing]

While we are on the subject of used bottles. I use screw top wine bottles for my fruit wines. I am having no luck finding replacement caps. I think they are 30mm,
Anyone know where to get caps?

 

[winemaker81]

Anyone know where to get caps?

There are several types of thread arrangements, so if you can find caps, make sure they fit the bottles you have. All I've ever found is ones like these, which I don't recommend using for aging.

I have used screwcaps for limited purposes, and discovered that caps that appear identical, may not be. Swap caps between bottles, tighten well, turn 'em upside down and both leak. Put them back on the original bottles, and they don't. I suspect that there is a large variation between manufacturers.

OTOH, I use Carlo Rossi 4 liter jugs (wine is for cooking, jugs used in the winery) and have no problem getting replacement plastic caps that fit securely. I have no idea why the 4 liter jugs appear to be a common design, while the 750 ml do not.

If you find a source, post it.

I get new bottles for $5 per case. Only problem is, you have to pick up at Napa Fermentation

Yeah, the round trip would sort of reduce the benefit for me ...


I was told of a winery in CA or WA (can't remember which) that was overstocked on bottles and selling them cheaply. I need to check NC wineries for that.

 

[mikewatkins727]

For screw caps check wirh: Label Peelers Wine Making and Homebrewing Equipment and Supplies and do a search for "screw caps".

 

[Snafflebit]

While my thumb heals (the nurse says the stitches need to stay in 5 more days) I decided to detail my findings on wine label removal and a system that works for me.

I have 3, 5 gallon buckets filled with water to which I have added PBW. I think baking soda would work to help remove labels, but PBW also cleans out old wine and is potentially no-rinse, even though I do rinse at this stage.

Put the bottles in the oven at 250 F for 15 minutes. Take out a bottle and use a box cutter to catch the corner of a label and pull SLOWLY at a shallow angle from the bottle. This leaves more adhesive on the label, less on the bottle. Sometimes the label with tear or start to become divided with half left on the bottle. I move to another corner and try again to remove the label.

I have about a 40% sucess rate getting the label off completely in this manner. Some labels are made with weak paper and strong adhesive, or strong paper and weak adhesive, and every other combination. Weak paper labels will shred, so set these aside. We are not done with them.

For the labels that peeled off "cleanly" there is always a bit of residue. I have a roll of cheap, non-linty paper towels and a bottle of Goof Off to wet the towel and some rubber work gloves. Start wiping down the bottles until the gunk starts to dissolve. Some adhesive is thin and easy to remove. Some is thick and smears around. It is possible to remove this adhesive but sometimes I just get tired of the work and toss the bottle at this point. It does not smell great, but Goof Off evaporates completly, unlike some of the other cleaners like Goo Gone. I clean outdoors. I take these cleaned bottles and give them a soak in the PBW water to get any dried wine out.


Now, on to the badly peeled labels. You will notice that some of the bottles have glue that is applied in horizontal stripes. I show a rather poor example of one of these bottles. Sometimes it is very pronounced. You can see it by looking through the bottle at the back side of a label. This type of glue is water-based. Put these bottles in a soak for a day or two. Some labels will literally fall off. Louis Jadot labels come to mind. Others will need the help of a Labelnator.


I scrape these water-based labeled bottles into my wash tub in the garage and use a drain strainer that I picked up at Home Depot. You do not want label gunk clogging your drains! A Mr Clean magic eraser easily wipes off any remaining residue and I keep it handy. These labels should come off very easily


As for the bottles which have shredded labels and pressure-sensitive adhesive, you could soak and scrape them, and that works, but I have found it is better to recycle these bottles. Save your effort for really nice bottles. Plastic labels don't bake off and don't peel off easily either, toss 'em.

After all the bottles have spent a time soaking inside and out in the PBW water, I empty, rinse and dry on a FastRack. These are great you can get them on Amazon. Each FastRack holds 2 cases of wine bottles. When the bottles dry, I sometimes find 1 or 2 with a bit of gunk. I put these back through the cleaning system.



I estimate that I have been able to reuse about 75% of bottles. If your friends are saving bottles for you, that will be a lot of bottles. Also, you don't need to badger people to rinse their bottles, which I have found really never happens anyway.

I am always on the lookout for wine boxes to store my bottles. If you can find a source of champagne boxes these are great for holding the wider Burgundy bottles.

Cheers!

 

[hounddawg]

on screw tops that are bought empty it takes a 28mm poly-cone cap, store bought wines with threads they use (stevins = spelt wrong) type threads, them need a machine to get to seal right, i have several cases of 28mm screw tops, but the tops tend to be expensive, so mainly i keep cork finish bottles, as for labels, i bought 2 single edge razor blade holders from eBay, the blue ones, the unretractable ones , they are blue in color,, i stand my bottles upright and fill them with hot tap water the fill the sink with hot water too, Notice i bought two, one for me,, one for my nephew,, lol
28mm caps eBay Amazon, label peelers, most wine supply suppliers, as for residue SOS pads
Dawg

 

[Scooter68]

I have to politely disagree with the choice of "Goof Off" as a label remover. In the picture that shows the bottom of the can is exactly why. The vapors are nasty stuff (Not far from sniffing the old Testor's Glue) plus the chemicals require yet another chemical to remove the Goof Off chemical properly - Especially around food stuffs (Wine)
This is from the SDS sheet for the product in your picture:

Overall hazard to health is a 2 (1 to 4 with 1 being the worst)
TARGET ORGANS: eyes, respiratory system, liver, kidneys, central nervous system
PRIMARY ROUTES OF ENTRY: inhalation, ingestion, absorption
INGREDIENTS Concentration:
Acetone {2-Propanone}60.0 -100.0 %
Xylene (mixed isomers) {Benzene, dimethyl-}<10.0 %
Ethylbenzene {Ethylbenzol; Phenylethane}< 5.0 %
Methanol {Methyl alcohol; Carbinol; Wood Alcohol < 5.0%

Again, I'm not trying to be just argumentative but unless you do your cleaning outdoors and with gloves on, that stuff is just plain nasty. That's the reason I toss back bottles that require that sort of stuff to get the label off. Too many more options in those bins for me to risk my health on that.

 

[Snafflebit]

Goof Off is mainly acetone it seems. Nail polish remover. Xylene is used in magic markers as the ink vehicle. Methanol we all know what that is. Ethylbenzene is not pleasant, like all benzenes, but it evaporates. I don't have a vent hood or anything like that but I do the cleaning outdoors with gloves. But there is no reason to risk one's health over dirty bottles either!

 

[Raptor99]

I have used naphtha (lighter fluid) a few times to remove stubborn label glue. But I only use it outdoors with gloves, which means I am limited to times with suitable weather. But mainly I try to avoid chemical glue removers.

 

[JohnBurns]

I've had success with "Goo Gone". I switched because of the vapors from "Goof Off". I hope that one is not as health toxic! I'll have to go look now.

 

[hounddawg]

I've had success with "Goo Gone". I switched because of the vapors from "Goof Off". I hope that one is not as health toxic! I'll have to go look now.

when i done remodel i used goo gone, can't remember, but i think it was safer, of course years of doing custom laminates sure did not help anything, I used only lock-bond and lock-wield contact cement, had to have a hazmat card to just buy them across the country, in malls,,, had to work nights, scared to death someone smoking or flipping a light switch, lol
Dawg

 

[Scooter68]

I was going to suggest Goo Gone but after looking at the MSDS.... hmmm better, but not much because of the vagueness of the info.
It was my impression that Goo Gone is citrus based but then again I guess it depends on what they add and what part of the 'citrus' they extract.
I used to work for Lowe's and it was an open secret that there was a citrus (orange/lemon) based air freshener that worked wonders on removing our label residue from the shelfs. (Came in a little aerosolm can about 1 1/4 " Dia yellow with an orange picture on the front. Home office 'forbid' it's use but... it worked and didn't drive away customers like Goof Off would. I think I heard some customers complain about our using toxic chemicals around them... (Actually not wrong on that count.)

There are a number of citrus based cleaners for various purposes out there and I think most would be less toxic than the petroleum based ones and easier to clean up after you use it. Still hard on skin and not good for prolonged closed area use, but better.

Bottom line is that we each make our choices, I just like to make sure folks know the potential consequences of those choices.

 

[Old Corker]

I go through my usual soak 'em, scrape 'em, wash 'em with Oxy. Those with glue that resists that get set aside. If I like the bottle or need it to get the the bottle count I need I will finish them with denatured alcohol and paper towels outside. If its a cheap or ugly bottle I just recycle it and move on. DA is my go-to but I'll use something else I have if I'm out of that. I don't buy Goof Off to Goo Gone because I've always considered them to have extra stuff for marketing proposes. If I can't dissolve it with DA, acetone or mineral spirits it either stays on or goes in the trash.

 

[Scooter68]

I've used minieral spirits on a couple of really nice bottles but I agree - there are too many others to chose from so I choose not to get into the ones with difficult labels.

 

[opus345]

Love an Oxy soak, but I'm starting to notice that some of the bottles that are on the 2nd or 3rd pass through my delabeling pipeline are starting to get "oxidized" on the outside. It makes me worry about the insides and those get recycled. I'm now using a dish soap soak for unlabeled bottles and an Oxy soak for new labeled bottles.

 

[hounddawg]

i put my bottles in hot water then scrape the labels off using a single edge razor blade in a blade holder, (non-retractable)
Dawg