Best and worse bottles to cap

I have been collecting empty bottles from my friends to build up my collection. I notice some cap better than others with a wing capper:

Does not cap well:

Corona
Carlsberg

Caps well:

Fat Tire
Stone
Celebration Ale
Petes Wicked
Sam Adams

Before I collect, clean, remove labels, sanitize etc. what are your experiences on what caps well and what does not?

my capper gets jammed up with Bass bottles.

its probably just that the wing capper isnt that great, but thats the only one ive noticed give me a hastle

I love capping (and filling) 32 oz. Tecate bottles. They make short work of bottling and you get a buzz in a bottle.

I'll have to try those Tecate bottles. I was hoarding 500ml brown Hobgoblin bottles until I figured out that my wing capper can't handle them. Dammit.

Chad

Bass bottles suck. Actually, I have trouble with most European bottles. The lip that my wing capper graps is just too short.

Just about all the American microbrew bottles work well for me.

I haven't had many problems with bottles. In my experience the bottles that seem to be more problematic than the others are Fat Tire.

I've noticed with my wing capper that most bottles with the rounded lip like the Tecate bottle above don't cap as well as the bottles with the sharper lip.

Call me crazy, (or whatever). I've gone from 12 oz longnecks, to standard champagne bottles, to 2 liter plastic screw top soda bottles!
Am I an outcast now?

scottthorn said:

I haven't had many problems with bottles. In my experience the bottles that seem to be more problematic than the others are Fat Tire.

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I've had some problems with them, too. They're lips are kinda skinny too. (That doesn't sound quite right )

with a wing capper:

the OLD OLD Guinness extra stout bottles don't crimp right
Pilsner Urquell are hard to cap
Stella Artois are hard to cap

My buddy says he can't wing cap bottles from New Belgium ales (fat tire, etc) but i Never have issues...half my bottles are NB.

Stella are hard but doable, Amstel Light almost impossible, most microbrews are great (New Belgian, Widmer are the easiest especially with easy label removal)

IowaStateFan said:

Bass bottles suck. Actually, I have trouble with most European bottles. The lip that my wing capper graps is just too short.

Just about all the American microbrew bottles work well for me.

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All my bottles are German 0,5 liter bottles.

I've replied to several posts like this before...

Check your capper closer...do you have screws holding your flat blades in or can they be pulled out with pliers?

Do they have cresents on the reverse side of them or are they cut straight? If they are straight then I can't help you.

If they have cresents then you can reverse them and they'll work for other sized bottle necks because they are a different size.

You can also try lossening your bell a screw or 2 to take up room.

Give either/both of these a try and post your results back here.

Sammy bottles well, as do Ekstra

New Belgium cap just fine, but those thin little girly necks don't handle too many reuses. After 2 or so the lips break off pretty easily.

homebrewer_99 said:

All my bottles are German 0,5 liter bottles.

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Hmm, sounds like you brought a bunch back with you too. I have 8 cases in storage along with the plastic crate. 3 of them are plop tops!

One case is this one.

I've had lots of trouble with Bass, and also with Dos Equis for some reason.

EdWort said:

Hmm, sounds like you brought a bunch back with you too. I have 8 cases in storage along with the plastic crate. 3 of them are plop tops!

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I have about 4-5 cases of flippies and about 16 regular ones with their plastic racks.

I have more bottles than racks since I purchase HWs at the Army posts I travel to.

I have about 24-25 cases of them altogether.

So much for getting my pfand (deposit) back!

I checked out my capper. It has a reversable neck plate in a cresent shape, size 26 for smaller bottles and size 29 for larger dia. The smaller works with 12 oz.

I tried screwing the bell out 1-1/2 turns, but not enough of an improvement for me to try to bottle carlsberg and corona bottles. I don't trust the seal. I already had a corona bottle go flat during conditioning. Tasted yechy!!!

OK, great, now you have 2 sizes.

Sometimes unscrewing the bell doesn't work, but we had to try anyway.

At least now you know your capper does 2 sizes...have you tried the other one yet to see if it'll work for you?

homebrewer_99 said:

All my bottles are German 0,5 liter bottles.

I've replied to several posts like this before...

Check your capper closer...do you have screws holding your flat blades in or can they be pulled out with pliers?

Do they have cresents on the reverse side of them or are they cut straight? If they are straight then I can't help you.

If they have cresents then you can reverse them and they'll work for other sized bottle necks because they are a different size.

You can also try lossening your bell a screw or 2 to take up room.

Give either/both of these a try and post your results back here.

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I've tried all of the above (seen your posts ) and while I've had some success, I still find it frustrating to cap the European bottles. I can usually make it work, but I've got enough American bottles I usually don't need to bother.

The larger size does not work at all.

I have had good luck with fat tire bottles. I'm going to toss my carslberg and corona bottles. I kinda wanted to keep a couple of clear bottles in each brew for color review. Know any clear bottles that cap well?

Pilsner Irquell suxors

Heinekin don't work with a wing capper either even. Neck is too short...

Work well even though twist-off:
Yengling
Kona
LaBatt

Work but keep your fingers away if you can:
All A-B (Bud, Bud Light, etc.)
Coors Miller
...most large breweries

Work perfect:
most European bottles I came across; Becks, Paulaner, Weihenstephan, etc
most smaller breweries
Sam Adams
etc

Bass and Guiness Extra 12 oz. bottles are a no-go for me, but the large Guiness Extra bottles seem to work ok. Go figure.
AP

When I bottled last, I learned that twist off bottles arent the easist. The winged capper seamed to not want to let go.

Parker36 said:

Stella are hard but doable, Amstel Light almost impossible, most microbrews are great (New Belgian, Widmer are the easiest especially with easy label removal)

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Does anyone else have any problems with Amstel. I have a couple cases that friends gave me and that is what I was planning on using.

Figures the only bottles I have are on here as a PITA to cap.

Great thing about a bench capper is that you don't have to care about the lip under the neck of the bottle as it doesn't need to grab anything. You can cap just about anything with that as long as the caps are the standard size.

Man, my supply spot is rendering a boat-load of Heineken bottles - I'm just gonna have to make em work - but they are light as a feather; probably make good giveaways.

BTW I got 4 real cool bottles at the local ABC store yesterday, they are from the St Peters brewery in England; cream stout and porter. I only bought em for the bottles - cost $1.89; the guy at the counter said they used to be $4.89 - they are pints that have been flattened a bit to form a flask shape with regular looking tops on em.

Question - back in the day I had a wing capper that was metal and never seemed to have a problem, never even considered it. This wing capper I have now is mostly plastic, is that that blukiness the problem or is it the ring that grabs? What if I just lean into it a little like a bench capper until I gets me one a those?

I like Sam Adams and Red Hook bottles.

New Glarus are excellent-- they seem to be pretty much the same as the bottles you buy from your LBHS. And, as an added bonus, the labels soak off really fast in a little warm water.

Dogfish Head seem fine, too, but the labels are much harder to remove.

As someone else said earlier, generally American micro-brew bottles work best with wing cappers.

I'm going to have to look into those 32 oz.Tecate bottles, though.

+1 on the Amstel bottle issues. They definitely suck with wing cappers.

North coast are awesome...


in the batch i bottled last night, i tried out a Lambrusco screw-top glass bottle... seems to work very well, and it's 58 oz !!

that'll be a party when i crack that one open.

I have good luck with the following:

Sierra Nevada
Sam Adams
Red Hook (really like the new ones)
North Coast

I have the Super Agata bench capper and have not had a problem with any bottles yet. (haven't tried any twisties)

The 32oz red stripe bottles can help make short work of bottling a batch

malkore said:

with a wing capper:

Stella Artois are hard to cap

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I wholeheartedly agree with this. Although this is only my second batch, Stella is the only bottle that I couldn't get to cap (three caps attempted). And I had a decent variety of bottles in the mix.