Bottles breaking

What is causing some of my bottles to break when opening them. I've had this happen to me three times now, thats 36 ozs of good home brew. Yoicks!!

The beer is good, it is carbonated, everything appears to be normal. It was 3 weeks in primary, then 3 weeks carbing up in bottles,

Like I said, Yoicks!!

How are you opening them and where are they breaking? I've had overcarbed bottles explode but have never broken one opening it.

They are breaking just under or at the cap line, there has been glass still in the cap when they break. Have I or one of my brewcrew (wife and/or son) been putting them on too tight? We use a hand held capper. My wife broke one last night while bottling but that's a different story.

Hold off on replying gang, I just saw an earlier thread on this subject, thanks.

EddieWess said:

They are breaking just under or at the cap line, there has been glass still in the cap when they break. Have I or one of my brewcrew (wife and/or son) been putting them on too tight? We use a hand held capper. My wife broke one last night while bottling but that's a different story.

Hold off on replying gang, I just saw an earlier thread on this subject, thanks.

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If you found an answer how about posting it.

I had this problem with my early brews. Changed caps and the problem never occurred again. I was losing a good 80% of my bottles. They would break just below the cap at an angle. I was using the oxygenated caps which appear like they are made from heavier metal. I also backed off of the force we were using to cap. Never did know for sure what was causing the problem but... it's gone now.

Sudz said:

If you found an answer how about posting it.

I had this problem with my early brews. Changed caps and the problem never occurred again. I was losing a good 80% of my bottles. They would break just below the cap at an angle. I was using the oxygenated caps which appear like they are made from heavier metal. I also backed off of the force we were using to cap. Never did know for sure what was causing the problem but... it's gone now.

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The thread I found didn't have too much, a couple of ideas. Here's that thread:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottles-breaking-60337/

Sudz, I've only lost 3 bottles out of 3 batches, 80% would surely bother the heck out of me.

I don't know what you mean by oxygenated caps. I use the caps I get when I buy a kit at my LHBS. I didn't know there were any choices there.

I will try using less force when capping and, as one poster suggested, try holding the bottle closer to the cap when opening.

I had a few bottles break just around the crown and figured out that I was capping them too hard. I had a couple break when I was opening them, didn't think anything about it. Then one day when capping, I noticed one had a crack around the top of the neck as I was putting it in the box. I let up some of the pressure on the bottle caper and I think that solved the problem. Also, I started using the oxygen barrier caps(the silver colored ones). They are made out of something much softer than the gold colored caps and they go onto the bottle with a lot less pressure. Much easier to use!

I've never seen this. I've used both a bench capper and a wing capper and so far no problem. I'll keep an eye out though. I had no idea that this could be a concern.

Are these newer bottles or ones that you have capped before? I am not sure if that would make a difference, but just wondering if repeated opening caused some sort of stress to the crown.

I have never experienced that before so I am interested as well. . . .

MajorTom said:

I had a few bottles break just around the crown and figured out that I was capping them too hard. I had a couple break when I was opening them, didn't think anything about it. Then one day when capping, I noticed one had a crack around the top of the neck as I was putting it in the box. I let up some of the pressure on the bottle caper and I think that solved the problem. Also, I started using the oxygen barrier caps(the silver colored ones). They are made out of something much softer than the gold colored caps and they go onto the bottle with a lot less pressure. Much easier to use!

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I too concluded it was too much force on the capper even though looking at it I couldn't see how "extra push" translated to additional stress on the bottle. I found the oxygen caps to be much harder to cap and remove. Interesting we found differences here. Maybe it has something to do with the bottles themselves?

Marko73 said:

Are these newer bottles or ones that you have capped before? I am not sure if that would make a difference, but just wondering if repeated opening caused some sort of stress to the crown.

I have never experienced that before so I am interested as well. . . .

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In my case all the bottles were new.... as was I....

I'm going to side with too much pressure on the capper. I've been doing this myself too.

Carefully open the rest of the bottles. Gently pry around the entire bottle cap to loosen it up before prying off the cap completely.

Broken glass is no fun, but the good news is that it sinks. Drink carefully.

Wait, so you mean you guys don't usually eat your bottles after you've drank the beer in them?

Marko73 said:

Are these newer bottles or ones that you have capped before? I am not sure if that would make a difference, but just wondering if repeated opening caused some sort of stress to the crown.

I have never experienced that before so I am interested as well. . . .

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I use used bottles, Adams, Boulder Beer, Red Hook, Sierra Nevada and Deschutes mostly.

I had this happen with a Cream Ale that I brewed. Great beer, but about 75% of them broke!!!! At first I thought it was the used bottles but I had three or four other batches and it was only the Cream Ale. I could hear when I began to pry the cap off a little cracking noise and by the end of the batch I knew when it wasn't gonna open. They broke around under neath the cap about a fifth of the way down the neck. 22 oz and 12 oz bottles. Wonder what could cause this? Bad yeast? Maybe the caps???

no, not bad yeast. After reading thru this entire post it looks like excess pressure on the capper when capping was the presumed cause. Hope that helps!

Whenever I get new caps or bottles, I always test them by capping an empty bottle and opening it. It wastes a cap, but at least no beer is killed if something breaks! Sounds like you got some cheap bottles.

llazy_llama said:

Wait, so you mean you guys don't usually eat your bottles after you've drank the beer in them?

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I think your confusing beer with ice cream.

bk082789 said:

I had this happen with a Cream Ale that I brewed. Great beer, but about 75% of them broke!!!! They broke around under neath the cap about a fifth of the way down the neck.

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Early in my brewing career I had the same thing occur with new bottles.

I was using the oxygenated caps which were notably heavier and more difficult to cap. I tried a different capper but the results were the same. The bottles appeared to cap okay but when I went to open one later, the bottle broke around the top of the neck.

I started using the standard caps and haven't experienced this issue since. Was it the caps? Who knows....

i've used the oxygen absorbing caps for the last few brews i've done and have only had 1 bottle break (now that I think about it) and I THINK it was with those, but that could have been anything, maybe I cracked/chipped the bottle while cleaning.

Curious, were all these bottles form the same case? If so, it may be that you got a defective batch of bottles.

In my situation they were from different cases but all were purchased at the same time from the same supplier. Certainly could have been bottles, at least I couldn't rule them out. But standard caps worked fine on these same bottles.

The strangest thing was that it was only this batch. I've used the same caps with other batches and recycled bottles for all of my beers (about a dozen batches now) and this was the only beer that it happened with. I don't believe that the caps are oxygen absorbing (they were Brewer's Best Crown Caps) so maybe I was putting too much pressure while bottling? I didn't feel like this was the case though because I also bottled a Hefeweizen the same night with the same caps that turned out great! It was a few months back though so maybe I just was giving too much torque on the one batch; that just seems strange to me though. I just thought it was interesting that only this one batch was doing it.

If it makes you feel better, I never found the smoking gun but... that was years ago and I have not experienced this since. So... maybe it's behind you now.

Sudz said:

If it makes you feel better, I never found the smoking gun but... that was years ago and I have not experienced this since. So... maybe it's behind you now.

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One can only hope!

So I'm wondering, Is there a way to look at the bottle before you open it to see if it's going to crack. I've been home brewing for a while and never had this happen to me until recently and now it's making me nervous.