Bottle capping woes

[Kevin O'Roundwood]

Alright lads,

I was bottling the other night and for some reason every single bottle was a struggle to cap. Don't know what the feck happened. I have one of those black plastic twin lever cappers (standard fare) and haven't had any trouble capping before but this time none of the caps went on clean - one side would kinda close but the other side would stick up unbalancing the bottle and nearly knocking the whole thing over. I managed to cap them all in the end by applying careful steady pressure, turning the bottle a quarter turn and repeating until it was all sealed but it took forever and surely shouldn't be that difficult.

Any ideas on what went wrong?

[baphomite51]

i remember something similiar happened to me, i found that just clamping down swift and fast in one motion worked best give that a go

[delzep]

Invest in a bench capper, they're well worth the money

[RichC]

Invest in a bench capper, they're well worth the money

+1
Cant recommend the bench capper highly enough

[Oh Crap]

Invest in a bench capper, they're well worth the money

+1
Cant recommend the bench capper highly enough

+2 well worth the spend

[pob]

+3 (spot the trend here)

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,7121.msg94850.html#msg94850

[fishjam45 (Colin)]

+3 (spot the trend here)

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.com/forum/index.php/topic,7121.msg94850.html#msg94850

yep, i bought the same one too and my old lever capper is now gathering cobwebs somewhere ...

[beerfly]

Same thing happened to mine. If you close it and look at the jaws you will probably have one that's slightly twisted. 

[Damien M]

Same thing happened to mine. If you close it and look at the jaws you will probably have one that's slightly twisted.

Mine too! The hand capper doesn't allow for varying bottle collar depths and so the collar grippers can get strained. Your can attempt to straighten but they will bend again. Also set the bottle on a no slip surface ( towel or the like) as it pervents the bottle sliding left or right if you apply pressure unevenly to the two handles 

Also, Buy a Bench capper, the are twice as fast and twice as easy as a hand capper   

[winstonia]

Yeah mine broke after capping 3 brews, was very annoying.

Also invested in a counter capper and it's perfect. Although I still hate bottling.

[Kevin O'Roundwood]

Wow, that's pretty damn unanimous....

Just read that review thread and they mentioned the ring you get on the cap when you have to use too much force - all my caps have those rings!

Looks like I'll be investing so. Thanks lads!

[Blueshed]

got me a bench capper a few weeks back and its the muts nuts, had the twin capper since i began brewing and my last few brews with it was a pain in the boll1x.

€35 from HBC https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/counter-top-capper-colt-black-p-58.html