What colour bottle caps do you use ?

[Covrich]

I just use whatever I have.. I try and spread batches with different colours but often I will just buy a big batch of a colour and sharpie the cap.. its not elegant but it is whats inside that counts.. liek Leon I have had really great feedback from my brews and noone ever said wheres the label..

I can understand people want to do it but it seems like a bit of a chore to me..

 

[MickDundee]

I have never had anyone comment that they didn't like my beer because it lacked a label, or the cap was plain, or it had a Bulmers label on the bottle etc. If the beer is on point, people will comment on that rather than a bottle which they no doubt dispense of after pouring. I rather spend on quality ingredients.

This. The only people who would be funny about an unlabelled bottle are people who don't really "get" real ale/craft beer anyway so the beer would be wasted on them anyway.

 

[Personal91]

I've just started using Malt Miller's own-logo caps. Two reasons - mainly cos they're �£2.50 for 200 as opposed to �£4 for self coloured, but also as they're oxygen-scavenging. Too early to say if this makes any apparent difference yet, but I guess it might help quality in the bottle.
I'm definitely in the appearances-don't-count camp. It's what's inside that interests me!

oxogen scavenging ?

 

[Personal91]

I just use whatever I have.. I try and spread batches with different colours but often I will just buy a big batch of a colour and sharpie the cap.. its not elegant but it is whats inside that counts.. liek Leon I have had really great feedback from my brews and noone ever said wheres the label..

I can understand people want to do it but it seems like a bit of a chore to me..

the contents are the most important bit but as a gift to friends or family it would be nice to have something that is appealing to the eye aswell as the taste buds

 

[Chippy_Tea]

oxogen scavenging ?

Have a look at this from our sister site Home brew Talk - http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=288094

 

[chub1]

Any colour does me

 

[Spoon]

I mostly just use whichever colour I have enough left of, if bought in 100's they either do 3x brews or at least 2 and some split batches.

I label all my beers, just quick ones done in MS Word, printed onto normal paper and stuck on with milk. So the bottle tops only need to be unique enough to identify one beer from the other untill they get labeled.

I'll probably put more thought into it if I ever did a competition, but it's good enough to impress friends and family so fine for now.

 

[MarkMayf]

I'm using white ones at the moment, I inherited hundreds of them. I write a single letter in sharpie to distinguish the beer (S for steam beer, C for citra single hop, W for wheat beer etc

I do this too, C - cascade, A - Amarillo. My last batch had '?' on the caps though. Not really sure what I made! Nice beer though!

 

[ElChemist]

One brew = one storage box. Box gets a quick sharpie explanation on it. Am doing a brew for the father in law in the next couple of weeks, so will need to do some labels and stuff for that, only because hes a right pain in the rump to buy pressies for and its his birthday...

Function over form for me, so long as the beer is good, who cares what the bottle/lid look like or say...

 

[Robin54]

Must admit I have started labelling my bottles- but I can do 20 whilst the next batch go thru the dishwasher which is a 1 hour cycle, so its time well used.

 

[Cwrw666]

Times aren't that hard yet.

It's called recycling.
I think you'll find there's quite a few on the forum who re-use their crown caps. Of course you have to be careful when you pop them off so as not to significantly dent or bend them. The bottle opener I use hardly leaves a mark.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

Have used different colours for different brews as they often overlap I rarely finish one lot of beer off before brewing and storing the next one, have used red for IPA, black for porter, Orange for bitter etc, have now bulk bought silver caps for all future brews

 

[Personal91]

Have a look at this from our sister site Home brew Talk - http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=288094

thanks for the link - informative

I just earlier today read a post by our very own japanbrew that if you fill your bottles and just place the caps on loosely by hand and continue to do so with the rest of your bottling then it actually allows your yeasties to make some co2 and push out the oxogen, he continued to explain that in a quiet room you could hear this and hear the bottle caps lifting and falling again ( well you would hear the hiss and then hear the cap landing on the rim of the bottle again atleast)

a golden tip if ever I have read 1:grin::thumb:

 

[Pirate_Pete]

It's called recycling.
I think you'll find there's quite a few on the forum who re-use their crown caps. Of course you have to be careful when you pop them off so as not to significantly dent or bend them. The bottle opener I use hardly leaves a mark.

I don't do it but I've read if you put a coin on top the cap and then prise it off you can re use them.

Personally I use whatever I buy from the supermarket where they are cheap. Although I did buy a bag from a health food store the other day when I picked up a couple of kits. I then write the number of the brew on with a marker pen.
Tonight I've had a number 22 and a number 19.

 

[Personal91]

I mostly just use whichever colour I have enough left of, if bought in 100's they either do 3x brews or at least 2 and some split batches.

I label all my beers, just quick ones done in MS Word, printed onto normal paper and stuck on with milk. So the bottle tops only need to be unique enough to identify one beer from the other untill they get labeled.

I'll probably put more thought into it if I ever did a competition, but it's good enough to impress friends and family so fine for now.

healthy looking collection there

 

[Personal91]

Have used different colours for different brews as they often overlap I rarely finish one lot of beer off before brewing and storing the next one, have used red for IPA, black for porter, Orange for bitter etc, have now bulk bought silver caps for all future brews

iv gone ahead with a bulk of 1000 yellow caps as there was a saving and didnt want to have to buy anymore soon but this also is my incentive to up my brewing! so will possibly be labelling aswell to save confusion:whistle:

 

[Clint]

Ha nice one Pete...a number 19 and a 22...chips AND rice and a bag of prawn crackers!

Cheers

Clint

 

[Spoon]

healthy looking collection there

That's only one shelf, I've brewed again since then, and I've just built a keezer.

I need more friends, or a new liver!

 

[trueblue]

Some national competitions will only except gold. The reason being they want all bottles to be uniform to stop any chance of cheating.