Bottling

[Cheshire Cat]

After watching a video on YouTube I bought this device to spray the inside of bottles. The idea I s to remove the aerator from your mixer taps and screw this on. However the threads are not compatible. Anyone had experience th it.

 

[moto748]

Only a small proportion of my stock of beer bottles are of the 'small neck shoulder' type, but for those few, I go back to hammering them only carefully with a copper mallet and hand tool. I'd discard them, but they are mostly rather nice green bottles that I kinda like. For the other 90%, the two-armed capper works fine.

 

[Nottsbeer]

View attachment 40770
Finally after many years using a two handled black hand capper I bought a bench capper. The reason being the hand cappers struggle with the small neck shoulder on the bottle on the left. However the bench capers doesn't seem the secure the cap as well as the hand one, as seen above. I have attached the bench capper to a bench which should allow more pressure, do I need to use the hand capper after the bench capper.

How are you getting on with the bench capper? I'm having a few issues with my hand capper on 300ml bottles and cider ones (think the issue you noted here). Am interested to hear if your bench capper works on any bottle neck style? Cheers.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

How are you getting on with the bench capper? I'm having a few issues with my hand capper on 300ml bottles and cider ones (think the issue you noted here). Am interested to hear if your bench capper works on any bottle neck style? Cheers.

Now I've got the hang of it it's brilliant would never go back. Yes it does work on any neck style I've got. You need to adjust the height but if you group your bottles it's not an issue.

 

[Nottsbeer]

Now I've got the hang of it it's brilliant would never go back. Yes it does work on any neck style I've got. You need to adjust the height but if you group your bottles it's not an issue.

Fantastic....starting to think about Xmas ideas

 

[moto748]

Increasingly these days, I like the idea of clear glass bottles. People talk about UV damage, but I imagine few of us store our beer on a sunny window-sill! But as I remarked on another thread, most of the well-known beers sold in clear bottles are the 'shallow collar' type, which are unsuitable for the over-centre type capper (examples of this are Bishops Finger, Spitfire etc). Brains SA in one of a small minority of deep-collar clear bottles. Also, their labels float off a dream, so they are Best In Show as far as I'm concerned!

I'm also surprised to read people complaining about Hobgoblin bottles. I always thought they were one of the best for capping, not worst. Well, I only drink Hob Gold, I don't care for the red stuff much, dunno if the bottles are the same.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

The easiest bottle labels to remove, I've found, are Rekordalig 500m l ones. The labels just soak off in water. But they are a short neck type and I struggled with the hand capper TBH. Ok with the bench capper though.
Also Black Sheep now have peelable plastic labels which are a doddle and you can decorate your van with them like my mate has!

 

[David_M]

Now I've got the hang of it it's brilliant would never go back. Yes it does work on any neck style I've got. You need to adjust the height but if you group your bottles it's not an issue.

I bought a bench capper and wouldn't go back to the hand capper. I too use different sized bottles and used to group them and adjust the height. I now have a number of wooden blocks of different thicknesses and just use them instead of adjusting the height of the capper.

 

[HSD]

I’ve been having a few broken bottle necks last couple of brews, especially with 330ml size bottles, inherited my dads old two handle red capper from Boots looks identical to earlier photo. Do you get less breaks with a bench style capper?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I’ve been having a few broken bottle necks last couple of brews, especially with 330ml size bottles, inherited my dads old two handle red capper from Boots looks identical to earlier photo. Do you get less breaks with a bench style capper?

No breaks and no scrunched caps with bench capper. So easy you'll wonder why you didn't buy one years ago.

 

[David_M]

I’ve been having a few broken bottle necks last couple of brews, especially with 330ml size bottles, inherited my dads old two handle red capper from Boots looks identical to earlier photo. Do you get less breaks with a bench style capper?

I used to break bottles regularly with the hand capper, not a lot but enough for me to remember it. I also used to nip tiny holes out of my tee shirts if I held the metal capper against my body to steady it whilst using it.
I think I've only had one mishap with a 330ml bottle since starting with the bench capper. That was a budweiser screw off bottle. The glass didn't break but sounded wrong when I put the cap on. Bottle carbonated ok and the neck was fine when I opened the bottle. Haven't used any of that style of bottle since though.

 

[David_M]

No breaks and no scrunched caps with bench capper. So easy you'll wonder why you didn't buy one years ago.

I've managed to scrunch a few caps but not many.
The head of my capper has a magnet in it, if I put the cap on the bottle and bring the capper down the cap jumps up to meet it and doesn't alway sit straight. So not really a scrunched cap but more an off centre cap that isn't properly sealed.
I now bring the cap and bottle into place on the capper and then bring the cap and bottle down onto the hard surface with the lever. Seems to cause me fewer issues.