Hi All, I've a 1.5 year old lambic that I'm going to bottle in the next few weeks. I've collected 10 or so lambic bottles that I'm thinking of using, and bottle the remainder in standard beer bottles. Anyone have any experience using lambic bottles? What bottling equipment do I use? I cant find anything on homebrew websites.
PH.
The cap sizes are different for a lot of the commercial sour beers. get them in before you go and fill the bottles and find you have the wrong sized caps.
I've used these bottles previously with plastic champagne corks and cages.
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/geuze-bottle-375-cl-2631-p.asp
They take a 29mm cap as well but you'll need a bench capper and the 29mm bell for that.
Ok, so you can use a standard bench capper? You just need the correct bell size for the plastic corks?
The plastic corks should be less air permeability than traditional champagne corks though. Thats why on focused on the traditional champagne corks. Can you use a standard capper for the traditional champagne corks?
What sort of pressure does them Geuze bottles hold with a 29 mm cap. I have a Kreik coming along. :-\
You need the correct size bell for the 29mm crown caps, the plastic corks can be inserted with a regular bell or by hand if you don't have a bench capper.
http://www.homebrewwest.ie/champagne-corks-plastic-super-25-pieces-1822-p.asp
No idea what sort of pressure they can take, but they're fairly hefty!
They're well able to take the carbonation level you're after.
A general rule of thumb is that a bottle weight of 2/3 that of the net weight will hold 3vol. Those bottles will probably weigh more than the net weight.