bottling wine

I have a ways to go before I have to worry about bottling, but I'd like to start collecting bottles now. I have about 6 gallons going. I have about 8 full size wine bottles (and corks and a corker), a half case of beer bottles (would need to buy caps and capper if I used these), and then I have some twist top bottles in recycling that I wasn't sure about - those are not re-usable I would assume because of them being twist tops? I tried to look in the bottling forum, but I couldn't find discussion on twist tops - mostly kegs and beer talk there.....

I use Twist tops for beer.
I use a bench Capper.
You need to do some math....and get some more bottles. You want to plan on 5 regular (750ml) wine bottles per gallon, or 10 of the 12 oz beer Bottles.

Oh...and here is the discussions on Twist Top Bottles.

A home brewing beer and wine making civilized discussion community. Also with beer/wine/mead/cider discussion, beer reviews, pub talk, and general chit-chat. - Search Results for Twist Top Bottles

I got my first 3 cases of wine bottles from a restaurant/bar & all they cost me was the fuel to go pick them up & some elbow grease to scrub them. The trick is to ask on a Wed. or Thurs. & be polite. Promise to pick up all the empty wine bottles they have on Sunday night, or Monday morning, or whenever it's easiest for them. Usually the slightly higher end resaurants don't serve wines that come in screw top bottles, so you should be good to go as far as corking goes, except for the odd champage bottle. Hope you find this info useful. Regards, GF.

thanks GF - I was talking about putting them in individual serving sizes - like the apfelwein I wouldn't want to open a whole wine bottle of it at a time - I'd want a 12oz'er like coolers/beer come in.

Thanks for the link BigKahuna - I will mark that and come back later to read. I'll still keep saving my twist top bottles meanwhile!

bkvail said:

Thanks for the link BigKahuna - I will mark that and come back later to read. I'll still keep saving my twist top bottles meanwhile!

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There is a TON of discussion there. Basically what it all boils down to is that everyone agrees that there is the potential to use twist top bottles with a bench capper. Those that have never done it are always going to tell you that they are too thin, or that they are not going to seal properly. Those that do will say that they have never had a problem.

bkvail said:

thanks GF - I was talking about putting them in individual serving sizes - like the apfelwein I wouldn't want to open a whole wine bottle of it at a time - I'd want a 12oz'er like coolers/beer come in.

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You can do the same thing at a bar, just ask them for their 12 oz empties, most bars will be happy for you to haul 'em away... Or you could just drink more commercial beer! :cross: Regards, GF.