Brilliant!

I was bottling for an upcoming homebrew competition tonight (more on that in a future post), and I ran into a problem. I had soaked four bottles in Oxiclean to get the labels off but three of the bottles were old returnables that used some hardcore glue. I wouldn't think it would be an issue at the competition but technically the bottles are supposed to be clean and these were downright sticky. I tried scalding hot water, scrubbing, even scraping with a knife to no avail. I was almost off to the store to by Goo Gone when I decided to do a quick Google search on household products that take glue off of glass.

The winning suggestion? WD-40. Now obviously you don't want to get any IN the bottles, so I put plastic wrap over the tops of the bottles, but saturating the glued area with WD-40 and wiping vigorously with a paper towel took the glue right off. Just to be safe I soaked the bottles in some more Oxiclean before sanitizing and filling, but I was impressed with how well the WD-40 works. And after bottling, I took a close whiff of each bottle and didn't notice any solventy smells. I know other people run into similar issues so I thought I'd pass along the tip. And, to whoever first posted this online, I say: brilliant!