Bottles and Capping

Hi, new to the forums. I have five gallons of ale brewing in my basement.

The guy at the homebrew store told me that the bottle capper I bought would only work with Sam Adams style necks with the low, large "collar". However, I tested it on a Pacifico (if IIRC) bottle with a standard, smaller collar that it shares with most other mass market beers and it capped just fine.

Wondering, will this pop off during bottle conditioning? It seems to be on there solidly.

dunk it in water to check for airleaks.

what kind of bottle capper is it?

I am curious about this whole thing as well... to piggyback on your original question, I'm also wondering what I may have done wrong in my bottling. I used Sam Adams (and other almost identical bottles) and a lever-style table top capper. When I bottled it felt like the caps were on tight, but only about one in five of my bottles carbonated. It ended up that I could pop most of the caps off by hand after about four weeks in the bottles. The beer was tasty, but flat. I also bottled a couple of swing-tops, and those carbonated just fine.

Did I maybe just not push the caps on far enough? Or maybe were the bottle mouths too wide? What can I try next time to get my bottles cabonated?

misskortney, sounds to me like your capper is defective or you didn't cap well.

I have the generic black wing capper and I use it on everything. Sam Adams to Sierra Nevada to New Belgium to import bottles. Granted, some bottles are easier to cap than others with it, but I've only had one bottle in several hundred not cap and carb correctly, and I've never had a broken bottle from caping.

I'm sure you'll be just fine with what you got.

Same here. I have bottled every batch that I have brewed for the past few years, and I have never had problems with a single bottle. I use the generic red bottle capper that comes in the starter kits, and have used all sorts of bottles including those odd-ball Belgian bottles. If it has a standard bottle cap (non-twist off), then you should be able to get a cap on it.

Just my experience.

Thanks for the help!! I think I will goof around with the capper (mine is that generic red one too) and see if it was user error before I make my next batch.