Scavenged bottles question

[ComusLives]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but it didn't really fit in the others. Do you lads reckon it's fine to use scavenged bottles for conditioning/storage rather than buying brand new bottles? I know most of them would be useless, but since I'm making a wheat beer I'm using primarily Erdinger/Paulaner bottles. They seem to be a little thicker than most and should be better able to handle high carbonation, right? They're also brown which should help with storage too.

What bottles do you all use? Any other brands that are particularly good? If you're scavenging old used bottles rather buying new empty ones, that is.

[Parky]

Check out my thread here for some tips on making good use of scavenged bottles -

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,7849.msg98394.html#msg98394

And yes, it's perfectly fine to use scavenged bottles. Takes a bit of time to de-label and clean them, but it means you can get some interesting bottle types that aren't so easily available (or expensive) to buy.

I've used a lot of Franziskaner bottles in the past for wheats, as they have thicker glass, and a relatively narrow diameter which I've found perfect for storage. The downside with that bottle is that they can be hard to cap properly with a twin lever capper, so I've switched to other bottle types since.

Good thread here on Beoir re: difficulties in recapping certain bottles types - may help guide your selection when collecting bottles -

http://www.beoir.org/community/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=7735

If you have a twin lever capper you might try recapping the different bottle types you have and see which are best suited to capping before going to the trouble of cleaning them.

[Rossa]

Not sure if this is the right thread, but it didn't really fit in the others. Do you lads reckon it's fine to use scavenged bottles for conditioning/storage rather than buying brand new bottles? I know most of them would be useless, but since I'm making a wheat beer I'm using primarily Erdinger/Paulaner bottles. They seem to be a little thicker than most and should be better able to handle high carbonation, right? They're also brown which should help with storage too.

What bottles do you all use? Any other brands that are particularly good? If you're scavenging old used bottles rather buying new empty ones, that is.

The heavy returnable German style are perfect as are the Belgian ones. Brown is preferable. Flip tops save on capping too. Try your local and see do they do any.

[irish_goat]

Your local craft beer bar will throw out hundreds of bottles a week. They have to pay to get them recycled so they're normally more than happy to give them away. Plus you can normally get a cardboard beer box off them which makes storage easier.

In my experience it's easier to try and collect the same kind of bottles as it makes storage easier and if you buy a bench capper you're not constantly readjusting it for different bottle types.

Pretty much any bottle will withstand wheat beer carbonation too.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

A decent 500ml bottle should weigh around 330g. The weight is the key indicator of how robust it is.

In the uk the bottle selection is pretty good. It is easy to get certain good ales cheaply enough for you to build up a bottle supply just by changing what you drink.

My last look at Irish stores, it is not so easy.

Don't bother collecting anything that is not brown though.