Thank you Spaten! Franziskaner bottle foil now easy to peel :-)

I'm doubting anyone will care about this but I use Franziskaner bottles as my homebrew bottles. I drink that beer the most, since it's my absolute favorite, and the 500ml (16.9oz) bottles are the perfect size for me and my glasses. I hate small 12oz bottles personally - too much refilling my glass. Anyhow, it's always been a nightmare removing the foil. Labels come off easily with an Oxyclean soak but the foil was always a pain. Hot water soaks help but it still takes a lot more time to remove the labels. Even scrubbing with a Brillo pad takes a lot of work to get them off, so this can save me a couple of hours literally over 40 bottles.

Well, with my last two cases I've noticed the foil peels right off, even cold. This is a great help to me since I need two more cases of bottles to have a buffer so with this case and the next I will be keeping the bottles. I just removed the foil on 3 bottles and it was effortless. I think they are either using less glue or a weaker glue. Or maybe I'm just lucky with these two cases so far, boy I hope not. So, anyone else that drinks Franziskaner notice this?

Funny how such a simple thing can make one happy no? LOL


Rev.

Are they the same as this? http://www.rebelbrewer.com/shoppingcart/products/Classic-500ml-Beer-Bottle-12-pack.html I resorted to buying 7 cases online since none of my local stores carry any bottles like this. Also wound up buying 4 German beer crates on Ebay to store them in. Wish I would have found the bottles locally as half the fun is drinking your way through them.

@fosgate - yep that's the one. For a dollar a piece empty it's quite pricey. So I get to use the bottle and have a wonderful beer


Rev.

Hmm, seems they are cost cutting - to which I am glad since the glue for the foil is now uber weak when it used to be insanely bonding. But... I've noticed that each beer I pour no longer reaches exactly up to the "SAHM" line on my German Hefeweizen glasses when they used to always hit the line 100% each pour. Now they pour like my own hefe's, they reach just under the line, so I'd guess a half ounce less. Not that it's a big deal by any means but I have to wonder why it's changed and I can only think cost cutting. But in all honesty since I can now easily use these bottles without the de-foiling fight it's worth the tiny beer volume sacrifice.


Rev.

I never worried about I don't delabel my bottles and remove just enough of the foil for capping never had an issue.

turvis said:

I never worried about I don't delabel my bottles and remove just enough of the foil for capping never had an issue.

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Don't need to delabel of course but since I often bring some into work for my colleagues to share the visual aesthetic is important. Bottles with labels and foil still on give a dirty look that some people would be uncomfortable to drink a beer from.


Rev.

I just bottled a batch of my own Weissbier using the Franziskaner bottles. What a pain removing the foil and labels.

After filling 16 bottles, I proceeded to cap. I noticed that it was harder than normal to keep the caps on straight with my handheld capper. When I finished, I compared the .5l bottle to standard US bottles. The caps fit tight on the US bottles, but have a little "wiggle room" on the German bottles before capping. They are slightly smaller than standard bottles.

Has anyone else had problems capping these bottles? I'm about to sanitize a batch of 22 oz bottles and transfer the brew. I'm afraid of the caps blowing off of the .5l bottles.

Thanks for any advice!

Yup. It has more to do with the neck flair though. A standard wing capper has two metal "jaws" that close around the neck. This is the main leverage point for the crowner to get enough travel to seat properly. On many euro bottles this flair is less pronounced and/or shorter and the wing capper won't travel far enough to seat



See the difference?

This is precisely why I got my super Agata bench capper. It uses the bottom of the bottle for leverage so there is no issue, regardless of bottle size/shape.

The Franziskaner bottles are like the one on the left. The problem is that the diameter of the opening is slightly smaller. The US bottles are .015" larger than the euro. I know we're splitting hairs here, talking about less than 1/2 of a mm. But it is enough to make the cap wiggle on the top of the bottle, instead of fit snug.

The only Spaten bottles I've used have been Optimator 12oz green bottles and I had a hell of a time getting the paper labels off. They didn't slide off easily after an oxyclean soak like most of my other commercial bottles. They look really nice with my apfelwein in them, though.

ScrewedBrew said:

The Franziskaner bottles are like the one on the left. The problem is that the diameter of the opening is slightly smaller. The US bottles are .015" larger than the euro. I know we're splitting hairs here, talking about less than 1/2 of a mm. But it is enough to make the cap wiggle on the top of the bottle, instead of fit snug.

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Yeah, that's a new one on me. I'm watching now to see about this. I've never had an issue with the bench capper but I've never used those bottles before.

I really wish Spaten / Fransiskaner weren't AB-InBev brands now

zachattack said:

I really wish Spaten / Fransiskaner weren't AB-InBev brands now

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Yeah, I found that out recently and decided I won't be buying any more.

ktblunden said:

Yeah, I found that out recently and decided I won't be buying any more.

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Try Paulaner instead of Franziskaner, if you can find it. I'm not a fan of AB In-bev, especially after watching the documentary "Beer Wars".

Now that I'm brewing my own German Heffe, I have no reason to buy it.

Update on the bottles.... Ten days, and no leaks or blown caps. It is carbed very nicely, so I think that the cap issue will be fine. Will be moving them to the garage for cold conditioning.