Re-using commercial beer bottles

[Davemc]

I am returning to home brewing after about 20 years. I have a batch of Festival Golden Stag fermenting away at the moment.

My question relates to whether it is safe to re-use commercial beer bottles such the Banks Bitter sold in Aldi as an example. I seem to recall that back in the day this was not reccomended as the bottles were quite thin and would not stand up to secondary fermentation in the bottles.

Does anybody re-use commercial bottles or do you stick to the ones available from home brew shops.

Thanks

 

[Thodd]

I've been using used beer bottles for ages.... BrewDog, Speckled Hen, Spitfire, Hobgoblin etc..... pretty much anything I can get my hands on gets cleaned, sanitized and then filled with my homebrew. Not had any failures yet.

 

[Bongofury]

They will be fine! My only advice is get a bench capper and not one of those 2lever one, you'll save yourself a lot of time and hassle in the long run.

 

[Clint]

Yeah..I'm a new brewer and saved my supermarket ale bottles for months before starting. If you have a variety especially any wychwood get a bench capper..mine all capped easily!

Cheers

Clint

 

[joshj3980]

No you shouldn't have an issue at all. The only time that you will have enough pressure to explode your bottles is if your primary fermentation is not finished when you bottle your beer. I agree with Bongofury, invest in a bench capper it's well worth the money, especially if your going to get bitten by the homebrew bug again :-)

 

[MickDundee]

I had a bottle bomb with one of the 750ml Birra Moretti bottles so now avoid commercial lager bottles. I have about 100 ale and wheat beer bottles and all have been fine.

Most commercial ale bottles appear to be identical to the ones you can buy from Lakeland etc.

 

[alarmsparks]

I only reuse old beer bottles and never had a problem. One question I have is I have a lot of clear bottles are these any good for cider as I read some where I should not use them for ale due to the light making the beer oxidise.

 

[MickDundee]

I only reuse old beer bottles and never had a problem. One question I have is I have a lot of clear bottles are these any good for cider as I read some where I should not use them for ale due to the light making the beer oxidise.

I have a couple of clear ex-OSH bottles that I use for ale - I just make sure they are well covered and kept away from sunlight (same as I do with brown bottles).

 

[DoctorMick]

I only reuse old beer bottles and never had a problem. One question I have is I have a lot of clear bottles are these any good for cider as I read some where I should not use them for ale due to the light making the beer oxidise.

If you leave clear bottles of beer uncovered the beer can skunk which is something to do with the hops iirc so cider should be fine.

 

[Davemc]

Thank's for the replies guys. That's good to hear as it will save me buying loads of bottles. Just need to pursuade the wife why I need to buy loads off bottled beer!