Bottling with Boulevard Brewing Smokestack Bottles

So, over the past year or so, I've become very fond of Boulevard Brewing's Smokestack series, specifically the Saison Brett. The Smokestack series, for those of you not familiar with it, are in, what I thought were standard American Sparkling Wine bottles:


When I made the decision to start homebrewing about a month ago, I decided, after reading several sites that talked about using the sparkling wine bottles for homebrew, to start saving these bottles for use for my homebrew.

I bottled my first batch over the weekend. When I filled up from first Smokestack bottle, I put the cap on it, and then attempted to use my two handed capper. However, I could not get the cap to fit.

My question is: has anyone else attempted to use the Smokestack Series for their homebrew? If so, how were you able to get the cap on (i.e., did you use a bench capper or is there some trick that I don't know about)? The reason that I ask is because I am bottling my second batch this weekend, and will need to go buy bottles if I can't figure out a way to use my 10 Smokestack series bottles.

Thanks for your help.

They are too big for using standard caps. You'll need corks, a corker and maybe even cages (depending on your carbonation level) to use those for bottling.

They do work well with corks however. I have bottled wine and beer in them before with success.

I agree. I use these a LOT and you need to cork them. I would recommend using Belgian corks with wire cages. You will need a corker to do this. I soak them for a few minutes in slightly sanitized water and they slide right in!

Don't listen to the people above, you can cap these.

The bottles are either normal caps or need the larger European caps. Will a typical cap fit over the top? If the lip looks to for a normal cap then you'll have to find the Euro caps.

Secondly you have to change your capper around. If you are using a Red Baron capper then you need to pull the metal plates out that go around the neck and reverse them so the 29mm side faces the neck, this will allow it to grip the larger neck. Also, this requires a new bell for the capper, they sell one for the larger European caps for a couple dollars, your LHBS should sell it. These just screw in.