bottle options?

I've had my first homebrew batch sitting in the secondary fermenter for a few weeks now while I've traveled around on vacation and such, but I'm finally getting ready to bottle. That is, as soon as I get some bottles. I originally thought I needed pop top style bottles. That is, the type of bottles that require a bottle opener to remove the cap. But then I read that twist off bottles will work just fine. Is that true? If so, any advantage to using pop tops over twist offs? Do twist offs require a special cap? I can easily get a supply of twist offs for free vs. having to spend $$ on buying 40-50 pop tops. Thanks for the help.

I never had much luck with the twist offs. I used standard bottle caps, a nice bench capper and plenty of force. Once in a while a twist off bottle would make it into my pile and slip by me. I'd say 25-30% of them didn't seal and when you opened the beer, it was flat and off.

There must be a way to apply those caps though.

BTW if you want a supply of bottles just start buying beer of the non-twist off variety.

i bottle twist offs all the time with normal o2 barier caps and an emily winged capper. No problems as of yet....

bench capper. that is all I am saying.

You can't find good returnables? Not sure if you guys have returnables/refillables, but here in Michigan, I can get all I want for .10 each. Maybe go to the bars and ask if they will sell you their empties for cheap.

i used twist off bottles, and no problems!!! use them, I use a bench capper

i try to stay away from twistoffs but occasionally a few will slip into my stockpile. i use a winged capper and the only difference is that it is harder to crimp it down and then pull hte bottle back out. it seals just fine.

I don't like twistoffs for aesthetic reasons. For that reason alone, I would never use them. I also discard other perfectly serviceable bottles because I don't like the shape of the bottle, for example the new non-twistoff Sierra Nevada, New Belgium bottles, Duvel, Satan Gold or Red, etc. I like the long neck shape.

Admittedly, aesthetics has no bearing on the suitability for bottling from a purely mechanical perspective. Some people use twistoffs and have success, others report failures due to fractures of the thinner glass or caps that don't seal completely.