So my second crown twin capper has started to break bottles after roughly 30 bottles. I had planned to buy a counter top capper at some point but this has been brought forward. While browsing the HBC(who are sold out unfortunately) I noticed the PET bottles. You get 24 for 12 quid. This means 72 PET's are the same price as my counter capper.
Having always used bottles i'm not sure on the PET idea but im getting fed up of glass shattering everywhere( cut myself up good the first time). Just wondering do many people on here use PET or alternatively glass with the counter topper.
Which would ye advise someone to go for.
Cheers
Graham
My feeling is that glass is better.
Glass bottles generally cost you nothing.
Its an excuse to try a new beer in the offie.
...and in the pub; I smuggle bottles out of the pub, other people do glasses.
You can clean, scrub and reuse them.
They are recyclable.
I'm still using my original crown capper after 5 years of bottling. Maybe you got a bogey one?
I realise that they are to be re-used, i must have 100 plus of them down in the shed, its just the breakage of both them and the twin lever capper is breaking my heart. I had 30 odd bottles ready to go on saturday before they started to shatter at the neck
I use a couple of pet bottles with every batch that I bottle.
reason is that I can check how the beer is carbonating in the pet botttle by squeezing it .
From my experience with pet ( since about last summer when I bought a 24 box) the beer tastes just as good from them.
some advantages.
1 they dont break
2 you can check how ur beer is carbonating
3 they are light so can use a cardboard box for transport or storing
4 cap seals are excellent
5 they are reuseable
some cautions:
1 They dont stand heat so u cant wash with very hot water or they may shrink like a wiring heatshrink sheath.
2 They have little flat seals in the caps. I recomend you carefully remove the seals using a sharp pin. The seals are very soft and come out easy ; u just cant get them out by ur fingers. Then sanitise them and the screw caps seperatly.
3 Being a plastic there are some concerns about toxicity from plastics re your health. Glass is recomended as a non toxic vessel however I empathise with your experience with glass breaking especially with those crapy cappers available in the suppliers where a metal grabber grabs the glass.
4 try source the best bottles you can, some 500ml bottles are very weak.
other
build a collection of flip top bottles. Most flip tops are reuseable commercially and some countries make you pay a deposit, especially germany, but they are tough bottles and seal great so build a collection of them and eventually you will be happy with glass bottling.
Depending on how many bottles you need it may even be worth buying new flip tops I think a euro each, but they last....and last.....and last for yonks...ive never seen one break on me. We also use 750 ml ones for wine
Quote from: delzep on June 10, 2013, 10:20:37 PM
I'm still using my original crown capper after 5 years of bottling. Maybe you got a bogey one?
Really, Id have loved to have gotten five years. This is my second one now in a year. Iv noticed that the start of them going is when only one side of the lever is crimping the caps. I generally use youngs caps, is this the brand most people go with.
Quote from: brenmurph on June 10, 2013, 10:22:21 PM
I use a couple of pet bottles with every batch that I bottle.
reason is that I can check how the beer is carbonating in the pet botttle by squeezing it .
From my experience with pet ( since about last summer when I bought a 24 box) the beer tastes just as good from them.
some advantages.
1 they dont break
2 you can check how ur beer is carbonating
3 they are light so can use a cardboard box for transport or storing
4 cap seals are excellent
5 they are reuseable
some cautions:
1 They dont stand heat so u cant wash with very hot water or they may shrink like a wiring heatshrink sheath.
2 They have little flat seals in the caps. I recomend you carefully remove the seals using a sharp pin. The seals are very soft and come out easy ; u just cant get them out by ur fingers. Then sanitise them and the screw caps seperatly.
3 Being a plastic there are some concerns about toxicity from plastics re your health. Glass is recomended as a non toxic vessel however I empathise with your experience with glass breaking especially with those crapy cappers available in the suppliers where a metal grabber grabs the glass.
I presume that seal is the same that you get in the bottle of coke id have every year or so. The cleaning aspect would also appeal to me. I would generally clean mine in warm water in the sink so I think I would be fine in that regard Bren.
i like them to.
also cause of the shape of the base i find they hold the yeast better when pouring
but other disadvantages are
when filling out of the same bucket i find the glass bottles carb better
if you over carb then it can damage the bottle, the layers start to seperate. have not tested it but i would not recommend going much over 2.5 vol to be safe
I have one for a few years and never a problem.
Is it a particular type bottle?
Check to see if the clamps are gripping under the collar.
It is gripping the Collar then it may be crushing the bottle.
Consider a rub of WD40 inside the bell?
I am only a greenhorn(shut up ciderhead) but I gave up on my twin handle black capper after bottling last batch,kept breaking bottle necks as well. I would say flip tops first,then the coopers plastic,then the crown cap glass.
I wonder is there a particular type susceptible to this.
Maybe Post pics for comparison?
Quote from: johnrm on June 10, 2013, 11:22:51 PM
I have one for a few years and never a problem.
Is it a particular type bottle?
Check to see if the clamps are gripping under the collar.
It is gripping the Collar then it may be crushing the bottle.
Consider a rub of WD40 inside the bell?
Generally stubbys although have found that it is impossible to cap Wychwood bottles, anyone else find this.
Its the youngs brand capper which is the cheaper option if I remember correctly.
Wychwoods have a rounded collar so can't be gripped by some cappers.
Capping, lol. :P
Quote from: johnrm on June 10, 2013, 11:38:22 PM
Wychwoods have a rounded collar so can't be gripped by some cappers.
looks identical to mine (albeit with less rust than mine)
mine is the same as that one also, no one seems to use a counter capper, I thought they were fairly popular
I borrowed one of those cappers from HBW while I was waiting for the bench capper to come in & yes it breaks bottles. Love my bench capper. HBW have them in stock now.
I think plastic bottles are ugly as hell. Another way to cheapen the view of homebrew beer when you hand one to a friend.
I have had a crown capper for the past 3 years and never had a broken bottle. A friend of mine who just started brewing rang me because his capper was breaking bottles. I went over and asked him to demonstrate how he was capping the bottles. It turned out that he was pushing down the levers and then pulling the capper off the bottle this was causing the bottles to break. I told him to pull up and release the levers before removing the capper. I know this sounds obvious but it may be some people's trouble.
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Generally stubbys although have found that it is impossible to cap Wychwood bottles, anyone else find this.
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Yeah! The Wychwood bottles are harder to cap with a hand capper, because the collar is deeper, but the glass is thicker and so stronger so I take that as a good thing and they look good!
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/amber-swing-top-bottles-brown-500ml-20pack-p-920.html
Himm! very convenient reduction in price, its a bargain! I'll take all you have !!!
Hang on a sec! Dam Google profiling got me again!!
Quote from: Chris on June 11, 2013, 09:48:09 AM
I have had a crown capper for the past 3 years and never had a broken bottle. A friend of mine who just started brewing rang me because his capper was breaking bottles. I went over and asked him to demonstrate how he was capping the bottles. It turned out that he was pushing down the levers and then pulling the capper off the bottle this was causing the bottles to break. I told him to pull up and release the levers before removing the capper. I know this sounds obvious but it may be some people's trouble.
Mine are breaking as I'm pushing the lever down so its not that problem
I gave up on the PET bottles after a year or so as I found I was getting inconsistent carbonation with them. I don't know whether the seals were starting to wear out, or whether I just wasn't tightening them enough - but I found the glass/crown cap combinationa lot more reliable. I started phasing them out as I built up my collection of glass bottles.
After several years of using the glass bottles, I can say that my twin-lever capper has never broken one. It's the same "Young's" capper in the photographs above. You should try loking at the quality of the glass bottles you're trying to cap. I re-use only three styles of bottle:
- Erdinger urweisse
- O'Haras
- Commercial "Brewery" glass bottles available in packs of 12 from HBW. I know some people think it's bonkers to pay for glass bottles, but the weight and quality in these bottles is really good and I view them as a good investment.
O'Hara's bottles are the same as a lot of micro ones e.g. Hilden, Hooker.
Sturdiest bottles we sell at work are Tiger bottles.
Quote from: irish_goat on June 11, 2013, 11:35:39 AM
O'Hara's bottles are the same as a lot of micro ones e.g. Hilden, Hooker.
Worth noting that O'Haras have the advantage of the label simply floating away after a few hours soaking in cold water. No scrubbing necessary. Wish I could say the same for the other Irish micros.
I would really love to know why some breweries use permanent/semi-permanent.
Whos Brewery Liaison?
I'd say it's down to whatever bottling machine they have. Some are designed to take labels that already have glue on them and some are designed to just take paper labels and then glue is added to the machine.
I'll see if I can ask a few next time they're in the B&C.
I love those White Gypsy bottles! But those labels are feckin impossible to remove. So I don't bother.
And as sad as it sounds, I'd be buying a lot more White Gypsy if I could remove those labels. Brewers take note!
Can those bench cappers also be adapted to cork wine bottles or are they two totally different machines? I have heard of a few people having inconsistent carbonation with the coopers bottles though i don't know why.
Generally no, but...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Colonna-Bench-Capper-Corker-Home-Beer-Brewing-Bottling-/140933331459
Quote from: Bubbles on June 11, 2013, 01:33:16 PM
I love those White Gypsy bottles! But those labels are feckin impossible to remove. So I don't bother.
And as sad as it sounds, I'd be buying a lot more White Gypsy if I could remove those labels. Brewers take note!
I was there on Sat actually. Nice chap. He was telling me they're gona do a crowd fund for a 1000 litre oak cask. Also plans to plant sour cherry trees along the boundary of the hop field. Picked up a few bottles in the local Centra there too. Only had the belgian so far & its great.
Those with Crap Cappers, do they-a look-a like-a this-a?...
Yes Johnrm more or less but mine is tha black plastic version, even worse.
Nothing wrong with the black plastic cappers. They're reinforced well and work a treat.
When both of you you say black plastic, do you mean the pic of the one I posted Waaaayy up the way?
The Red handled Chrome jobbie is the dodgy one AFAIK.
I met with Brewcity at the expo who confirmed this.
I have the Black plastic one, never a problem.
Quote from: johnrm on June 23, 2013, 08:32:54 PM
Those with Crap Cappers, do they-a look-a like-a this-a?...
That Eye-talian one looks a bit-a too much like-a one of these for my comfort :o
(http://www.futurebeef.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Burdizzo_Partridge.jpg)
Careful now, you'll be going for one of those soon yourself...