Removing Labels pt 2 Screenprinted Labels

Post number 2 for “How to remove labels”

Clean ready to use bottles 

Our last label removal project we worked on the standard adhesive style labels that are common on most food containers. We had a lot of fun re-purposing bottles and containers around the house using this method, but when time came to package some home brew projects (beer, mead, and wine) the bottles that we wanted to use had painted on labels.   

How to remove painted on labels 

We could have gone to the local homebrew store and bought new bottles for a price…

Scrubbing splashes! Be very careful 

Trash to the rescue once again! Or rather, recycling!

Corona beer comes in tiny cute little bottles, labeled Coronita, and they're perfect... Except the painted on labels!

Enter muriatic acid, aka hydrochloric acid. It can be purchased at Home Depot, we found it by the paint thinners.

A quick soak in this stuff (we let ours soak for about 5 min), some scrubby brush action, and they come pretty darn clean. A few required a second soak but the end result is a pretty label free bottle.

Muriatic acid

TIPS and TRICKS

Muriatic acid is no joke. It is very powerful and very dangerous. BE VERY CAREFUL!!!

• We recommend a glass container to hold the acid.

• 

  Don't be like Megan, wear safety glasses

  Muriatic acid is an aicd. Dont be like Megan and get it in your eye. If you do get the acid in your, on or on your skin, rinse it right away with water. Megan flushed her eye for a good 15 min. If you get  acid in your eye it can lead to loss of vision so go to the doctor!
• Wear gloves and safety glasses.

• 

  We used a glass jar to hold the acid 

  Because of the nature of muriatic acid it’s best to use it outside on a dirt surface as the acid can eat any surface INCLUDING concrete.
• Another reason to do this project outside is because the acid smells like rotten fish.
• Fill the bottle halfway with water so they don't float in the acid.
• Don't use the acid when it's windy
• Don't use the acid when it's raining.
• Don’t get water in the acid.
  
  

How to dispose of the used acid.

• Muriatic acid should NEVER be poured down a storm drain, a sink or flushed down a toilet.

• 

  What happens when the acid gets on concrete 

  Most cities offer a hazardous waste pickup a quick internet search should provide you with your local location and timing of your cities hazardous cleanup station(s.) We recommend this method as the best and most efficient method. Plus if you’re like me you probably have a few other items you can dispose of at the same time.
  
  
• You can also neutralize it with lime (the powdered or crushed type used for lawn or gardens) or baking soda. Pour it into the acid until it stops bubbling.

The NatualHandyMan goes into more depth on all of the disposal methods (found near the bottom of his article), as well as going more into the handling of acids.

Let us know how your projects went in the comments below.

By Laura

Morel Hunting

Mushroom location 

The husband with a morel 

After more than a week of rain and cold, the sun finally came out, and so did the mushrooms.

The hubby’s brother invited us to go morel hunting! This was my first time, I was very excited.

At 8:30 am we met the brother, his wife and their two kids a little outside of town. The wife, who has a masters degree in botany, has gone morel hunting before and knew where a good area about an hour and a half away.

When we arrived she gave everyone a bucket and a pocket knife. She showed us pictures of what the mushrooms would look like and sent us out into the wild.

In the beginning we found lots of mushrooms...that were not morels.

one kind that we found that I thought were interesting were some coral/brain mushrooms. They are eatable, the same way that a puffer fish is edible (poisonous unless done right). Best just to stay away from them.

Coral/brain mushrooms 

It took us about 20 mins to find our first morel.

They like to grow where it is nice and shady in fallen pine needles.

Not a morel 

Also not a morel 

After your see your first morel in person, they are very easy to spot after that. I think they look like little gnome houses.

I was lucky enough to find the first morel. The 9 year old self proclaimed mushroom expert told me that it was indeed a morel and safe to eat, but to be on the safe side I waited for the mushroom expert with the masters degree to confirm that identification.

When you cut a morel, cut them at an angle. There is no need to dig the mushrooms out because they get hard and mud caked the further down you get.

Morels like to grow where it is nice and shady in fallen pine needles

If you see a morel don't go running to it.

You will probably step on more on your way to it. They grow in patches. If you can find one there will be many more with in 4 or 5 feet of it.

Mushroom discussion group 

After about 2 hours the hubby and I had filled our buckets. We continued to help the two kiddos find more morels.

Pretty soon we all had full buckets and it was time to go home.

If you have any fun mushroom hunting stories, or good recipes let us know in the comments.

~ Laura  

beginners luck 

Removing Labels

beautiful clean jars 

We've been saving up our jars for a while, intending to reorganize our pantries. Megan's need for canning jars is about to hit, and Laura's husband eats a lot of salsa; the only problem was the unattractive labels. They didn't look nice, and they made it harder to figure out what was in the jar. Is this white powder cornstarch or flour? Who can tell, it's labeled salsa?

OxiClean to remove labels 

After some lost hours on Pinterest, one of us stumbled upon an article saying that if you soak the jars in hot water with OxiClean the labels would come right off.

It worked like a charm! Most of the labels do come right off, and you will find them floating in the water with little to no work.  

Tips

• The hotter the water the better. Boiling water works the best. WARNING! Boiling water will melt plastic jars. Plain ol' hot water will work fine for getting labels off plastic.
• Wear gloves. The OxiClean will do horrible things to your fingernails. Also, it makes working in the hot/boiling water more tolerable.
• Use steel wool and a scraper (like a butter knife) to get the exceptionally sticky labels off.

We found the clear labels have to soak longer. Then you have to peel the label and get down to just a sticky residue.

Megan gets a stubborn label off a jar 

Truly a labor of love.

Plastic jars don't come as clean as the glass, the glue used on the labels take a lot of soaking and scrubbing.

After the Oxiclean method of label removal you get left with a lot of jars that still have glue residue making them exceptionally sticky.

clear label and extra sticky glue 

We mixed together some baking soda and coconut oil. 

Why that particular combo? Well, baking soda for the scrubby action, and coconut oil because Megan always uses it to remove

Most labels come off with just a little soaking 

sticky crud when it gets on her hands. 

It seems to have a good cleansing effect, like it’s actively breaking down the sticky hand junk. We've tried other oils to clean with, and have found that coconut or castor oils are the way to go; the cheapie vegetable oil just makes a bigger mess. If you have castor oil, it'll probably work just as well, if not better. It's just a lot more messy than coconut oil.

Slather the coconut oil and baking soda mix onto your stubborn stickies, and then let them sit for about 20 minutes. Grab a scrubbie, and wipe away all the mess. Also, we found that using a dry paper towel to just wipe all the crud off works perfectly.

coconut oil mixed with baking soda to remove glue 

Wash your bottle or jar like normal, to get the oil residue off, and you’ll be left with a sparking clean new jar, awaiting all sorts of adventures.

Later we will post about how to get those screenprinted or painted labels off glass and ceramic! We'll also show you two ways of decorating the lids of your cleaned jars, so nobody will have to know your entire pantry storage came out of the recycle bin!

~Megan and Laura

Let us know if you have any additional questions or if you have another a better method to get labels off! Our comment section is just below, and you don't need to register first.

How to make Extracts

Extracts are amazingly easy to make.
They are whatever you can stuff into a bottle with alcohol.
The hardest part is waiting for the alcohol to extract the flavor. It is a process that can take weeks or even months.

Homemade extracts

I am attempting to cut down how much sugar I consume, so instead of sugar I use vanilla extract.
Most of my sugar consumption comes from all of the coffee I drink, Long story short ,we go through a lot of vanilla extract. When I deciding to make my own I went with the "go big or go home" approach so I am making a gallon of extract.

For a quality extract you will want a 1 to 4 ratio. For every 4 oz of alcohol you use will need 1 oz of whatever you are extracting.

Vanilla beans are ridiculously expensive ($4 for two beans in most grocery stores). Luckily, if you purchase then in bulk they are cheaper. Beanilla  has really good deals as well as Amazon. For one gallon of extract I needed 10 beans. I found a friend who was willing to split the price of 1 pounds worth of beans (150 beans). Now we each have a "lifetime' supply of vanilla beans.

For citris items like oranges, grapefruit and lemons you will only want the cored part of the rind and not the pithy white part. One way to get it is to grate it, but this is very labor intensive, and unrealistic (personal opinion). I used a very sharp knife and cut went slowly. Any piece that had the white pithy junk was discarded. Please note: no fruit was wasted, all eatable pieces either went in breakfast smothies or to work as snacks,

You can use whatever kind of alcohol you want to extract flavors . I used rum, vodka and ever-clear. The quantity of the alcohol does not matter much for making extracts, so go ahead and get the cheep stuff.
Considering the amount of vanilla extract I was making, I got the cheapest vodka I could.

 Rum has such a strong recognizable flavor.  Think of rum cake around Christmas time. I knew I wanted to try making something with rum,

The ever-clear was an impulse buy, the lady at the liquor store sold me on it. She also makes extracts and it was what she recommended. Or so she said, whatever, I am an easy sell.

In the end what I made was grapefruit with rum, coffee with vodka, basil with ever-clear, rum with orange and vanilla lastly orange with ever-clear.

This picture is one month after being mixed. I am planning on waiting 6 months to bottle everything. I will post an update at that time. Even if the ever-clear being an impulse buy, the basil and the orange were the first to extract the color.

Add caption

Keep the jars out of the sun and shake them every now and then. The herbal extracts will be ready within a couple weeks, with this being my first attempt I am going to wait the full 6th months before I strain mine and bottle mine.

I will do a follow up post when the time comes.

If you have made extracts or what to know more about what I have done let me know in the comments below.

By Laura