Bench capper advantage?

I'm currently using a wing capper and have had no problems. What are the advantages of using a bench capper over the wing style?

Assuming you mount the capper to a bench/table or wide piece of wood, it's way more stable. The capping is a one handed operation leaving the other hand free for either speeding your process or holding a pint of homebrew. It can cap on twist top bottles.

I was bottling the some beer this weekend with a wing style. Somehow it got stuck too low on the neck and shattered the bottle into very fine piece of glass. Luckily I was able to stop my hands before they hit the glass covered table.

MGAZ said:

I was bottling the some beer this weekend with a wing style. Somehow it got stuck too low on the neck and shattered the bottle into very fine piece of glass. Luckily I was able to stop my hands before they hit the glass covered table.

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Wow how much down force are you appyling to do that?

Well, It was mostly the metal gripper that got stuck on the fatter part of the neck.

Of course my fat, drunk ass weighing on top of it probably didn't help much.

I've had a wing capper fail to cap many brands of bottles, including New Belgium, Pilsner Urquell, and Guinness Extra Stout.

not to mention twist tops won't wing-cap.

malkore said:

not to mention twist tops won't wing-cap.

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the prymid bottles i filled once capped okay.

malkore said:

I've had a wing capper fail to cap many brands of bottles, including New Belgium, Pilsner Urquell, and Guinness Extra Stout.

not to mention twist tops won't wing-cap.

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that's odd to me. i bottle with NB, and guinness bottles(all types) all the time with a wing capper. also just polished off a Pilsner Urquell bomber that i had capped with same capper. the problem bottles i have had occasionally are european bottles with the neck lip very high/thin. no labels anymore, so i can't identify them very well.

The main advantage to a bench capper has already been stated: it's a one handed operation and, with a long enough handle, can be done by a child or by someone with significant arthritis.

The varying degrees of success people have with wing cappers largely depends on the specific wing capper model and the strength and dexterity of the operator.

i hate my wing capper. REALLY hate it. however, it's all i can use now. one bad slip and the bottle slides and you lose a bottle.

bench capper can cap some champagne bottles too

My first wing capper simply broke after a few batches. Not sure if that was due to my ex-brew buddy or what.

After my second wing capper stretched and started to bite off the heads of poor innocent bottles, I had enough. (Again, this could be the ham-fisted ex-brew buddy.)

Bought the Super Agata bench capper and never looked back.

*TIP* - To reduce the bottles slipping during wing-capping, go get a roll of that black, puffy shelf liner. It makes for an almost non-skid surface, and can be rinsed off when you're done.

We started with flip top bottles. Then when we started making wine, we got a big floor corker that came with a bottle capper attachment. Ended up having a friend who picked up an old GearTop bottle capper thats got to be 40 or 50 years old. Been using that and it works like a champ!!

I picked up a Colonna capper/copper recently:



It made bottling a batch so much easier than using the old wing capper. I'll also be able to cork with it when Mrs. Gnome starts making wine.

i got a ~100 yr old bench unit off ebay.