Anchor bottles and wing cappers

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Butcher

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A while ago I had bottled a batch and used about 6 anchor bottles. I was concerned that because of the high lip that the capper graps onto they were not fully sealed. Capping one of those bottles does not take the same effort required to cap a regular bottle. Anyways I didn't end up with any flat beers so it was fine.

A while later and I had drank quite a few more Anchor beers and bottled a batch last night using about 18 of these bottles. One bottle I broke the top off, got lucky and it was high enough that beer didn't spill out. Another one I cracked the neck just under the cap. Quite a few bottles made grinding glass sounds as I was capping them. I inspected every bottle and couldn't find any cracks but if I have any flat beers the bottle gets tossed. I have more than enough bottles that I am not using any of Achor's bottles to bottle with untill I have myself a bench capper.

Has anyone else run across bottles that are difficult to use with a wing capper?
 
I know this thread is a little old, but I just had a bad experience with Anchor bottles last night. I had one bottle in my batch and as I was capping it I heard the neck crack. Instead of leaving it alone, I attempted to remove the cap and ended up breaking the neck off. The broken neck sheared off at an agnle and I ended up cutting my finger. One hour at the ER, a tetnus shot, and 5 stitches later I am fine, but will not be using Anchor bottles again.
 
Are you guys talking about Anchor Steam bottles? If so, then I need to go find and pull the six I have in my bottle stash. That sucks, I kind of like the bottle shapes on these.

anchor_bottle.jpg
 
For some stupid reason I keep saving those bottles even though I don't intend to use them unless I get a bench capper. Of the beers I bottled from the original post they all sealed and none came out flat. Although I did have one bottle that had the top 1/4" of bottle break off with the cap.
 
Bump to this. We had 6 Anchor Steam bottles that we used for our first batch. Two broke while capping, right at the neck, and another two broke when opening, at the same spot. Ditched the remaining two after opening them and won't be using them again.
 
BGBC said:
Bump to this. We had 6 Anchor Steam bottles that we used for our first batch. Two broke while capping, right at the neck, and another two broke when opening, at the same spot. Ditched the remaining two after opening them and won't be using them again.

I was in the middle of bottling today, and got to first of nine Anchor bottles. Something felt off, and I'm so glad I paused to come see if they'd given anyone else problems before I crunched my way to a frustrating mess!

For what it's worth, Uinta bottles have a similar shape, but have a neck that works with a wing capper. (Plus they come with Hop Notch IPA in them.)
 
I capped 24 of them a few days ago. I did not have any issues with any of those bottles. I did notice that they were much "easier" to cap than my other bottles, did not have to use as much force. We will see how those beers turn out. I hope they do not turn out flat.
 
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