volcar

Recipes 

I was wondering if you could reuse wine bottles to bottle beer or if anyone has done this before?

david_42

Recipes 

This has been discussed many times. Wine bottles are not designed to take pressure and champaign bottles don't use standard caps.

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Ben25

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+1 Don't do it! They'll blow up.

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CBBaron

Recipes 

As mentioned wine bottles cannot take carbonation so don't use them for beer.
However champagne and sparkling wine bottles make for nice beer bottles.

Champagne bottles from Europe take a larger cap than beer bottles so you will need different caps and a different bell on your capper. Also bench cappers work better so you don't have to worry about the thicker necks.

Sparkling wine bottles from US winerys use standard bottle caps and are easy to use. The only problem is the thicker necks and collars which may not work with wing cappers.

Craig

volcar

Recipes 

Thanks I might just try swing tops or bigger beer bottles such as 22oz instead.

fratermus

Recipes 

That has been my experience as well. I like the American Champagne bottles; nice and heavy.

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WBC

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I have cases of older 22.5 OZ sparkling wine bottles that I have used for beer. They work great and you fill less of them too. I do not give them away and use them for making room for more kegs in the serving fridge. I bottle some specialty beers like black beer in them as this is a seasonal beer. I keg the majority of the brews.

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beergears

Recipes 

Hmm, Is that true?
I tried some and found some with the larger diameter (i.e., the regular cap would not even sit right on the neck). Cook's was the brand IIRC.

I was dissapointed as I can ask a friend to save a bunch!

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summersolstice

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I've crown capped US produced sparkling wine bottles for years for my meads and I've never had one that didn't work. I know for a fact that Andre, Korbel, and Gruet sparkling wine bottles work well with the cheap wing cappers.

EvilTOJ

Recipes 

Martinelli's bottles work well with standard beer caps too.

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