2009 Syrah - Day 86 - Wine Bottle Cleaning

One place we're cutting costs for our wine making project is by reusing old wine bottles. Since new wine bottles can run you about $15 for a case of twelve, this could quickly add up to be a larger expense than the cost of the grapes that we'll be filling the bottles with. So reusing bottles if you have the time and inclination to accumulate them is a much better way to go. Since before the holidays we've been saving our bottles and asking our friends and family to do the same. At this point I have a pile of bottles waiting for us in my garage. However, just repackaging another winemaker's bottle with our wine is not what we set out to do. We want the full experience and we want the people enjoying a bottle of our wine to know who made it, where the grapes came from and what grape it is. To do this, we need to get rid of the labels and cork protectors that are currently on the wine bottles and replace them with our own.

The easiest part of the bottle cleanup process (other than rinsing out the bottles immediately after finishing the original contents) is to peel off the foil or plastic cork cover. This is easy and often gets done when initially opening the bottle of wine. For those bottles that haven't had it removed, just use an existing tear or create one with a pair of scissors and peel the cork cover off completely and discard.

In an effort to look a little less cheap, we're going to do our best to remove the old labels on the reused bottles. After attempting to rip labels off, wetting and and peeling and soaking and scrubbing the labels off, all achieving minimal success, I heard a suggestion about using Trisodium Phosphate (TSP) to remove the labels. TSP is a wall prep solution used by painters to remove old wall paper. It is also surprisingly effective at removing the glue that holds on wine labels.

Use the concentration the package recommends for household cleaning and add to hot water and soak the bottles.

Let the bottles soak for about 5 minutes and then the TSP should start to do its work. There is a sweet spot for soaking the labels in the TSP/water solution where the TSP and the water's heat have loosened the label, but the moisture hasn't broken down the label to the point that it comes off in shredded little pieces. The ideal is when it comes off easily in one piece. Past this point you can still remove the labels and glue with ease, but the labels no longer just slide off, they require a little more elbow grease or come off in small pieces. Either way, the going is much easier than my earlier experiments, especially when scaled out to the larger numbers of bottles we are working with.

This picture gives the ideal example. However, for whatever reason, some labels are more persistent than others. These often require a bit of scraping. I used a metal spatula and steel wool to do it. This required a lot of effort for these specific bottles, one of those 90% of my time was spent on 10% of the bottles. Now that I've sunk a few hours into this project I'm willing to admit that I will never look at a bottle of Yellow Tail or Bogle with quite the same eye. Those were the labels that even after multiple soaks and scrubs refused to completely come off and the bottles remained gummed up with the label's glue.

Also be sure the give each bottle a thorough rinse. While TSP might not be toxic in small quantities, you still want to completely rinse it off the bottles. Especially since on bottling day, the bottles will probably only get a rinse or two of sanitizer and possibly a quick water rinse. Better to get all the chemical cleaners off now than try and do it right before filling the bottle with wine.

Eventually I worked my way through the bottles we've accumulated and started to get a handle on the scale of the project. I spent about 3 to 4 hours cleaning the bottles. But in the end, we ended up with a nice quantity of cleaned, but mismatched bottles. Still better than paying for the damn things. I was also able to organize and box the wine bottles, hopefully to turn what was a haphazard pile into something approaching organization.

The next thing to figure out was to test different spray paints with our stencil. I grabbed a white primer and a white spray paint to see if either would be a better match with our labeling method. I also considered a roller or a sponge, but figured I'd try spray paints first, since they'd probably be the quickest way to get the paint onto the bottle. Though it's unknown how well either will stick to glass or if second coats will be required.

The stencil was a little larger than a bottle, it went long at the bottom and overlapped around the back side. I'll need to trim is down for when we are in assembly line-mode painting the bottles. We should also figure out a way to rubber band the stencil, so you don't worry about painting your hand while applying the label.




The painted labels, while not perfect do work pretty well. There didn't seem to be a difference between the primer or the plain white paint. Both were prone to running a little, but with a little practice it may get a little easier.





I think the rubber band holding the stencil on is going to be key, since the edges of the stencil were prone to letting a little bit of the spray in under them. If the rubber band is in place the edges would be held a little firmer. It would also allow for a little more attention to be taken off worrying about getting your hand sprayed and focused on doing a better job painting. It would also allow for spraying the paint from a distance further away from the bottle, the short spray was a result of me trying to balance holding the stencil on the bottle, not painting my fingers, not painting the deck and getting good coverage. Not ideal.

The stencil was also prone to collecting paint on the back side, either the rubber band should deter this or we'll need to wipe down the stencil after every few applications.

Overall, I like the label, but it could needs a little refining. I also inventoried the bottles after cleaning, currently, we have 8 and a half cases of wine bottles, which is just over one-hundred bottles. Halfway to our goal of approximately 200 bottles. Good thing we still have a few more months to go.

I may repeat this process with my collected beer bottles once I design a label for my brews. But that's still a ways off.