Broken Bottles

Yesterday I bottled my 5th. batch and had two bottles that broke while capping them.
Most of my bottles are recycled Sam Adams and other HB purchased 6 packs.
I have only purchased 12 22oz.

I have @ 150 bottles in stock (thanks to a brother in law that has a pizza parlor and sell beer) and have only capped these ones or twice.

Is this to be expected to break an occasional bottle?

I am still using the two handed capper that came with the kit.

The caps that I used on this batch came for the LHB.
They seem to need a little pressure to seat them.
Is there a difference in caps?

To make matters worse I opened my first bottle of my Wheat beer tonight and the neck broke when I popped the cap!
Second on tasted great!

Thanks
Don

I've never broke a bottle while capping but switched from the wing capper to a bench capper pretty early on. I think you'd be much less likely to break a bottle with the bench capper.

I broke 3 bottles last batch with the cheap 2-handled capper that came with my kit. I hate that thing. Never had this problem until recently -- maybe some part of the capper got bent or twisted recently, but now it seems there's broken bottles every batch. My next equipment purchase is going to be a bench capper.

I haven't had any issue with broken bottles yet, but I did learn early on which bottles NOT to use.

You definitely need bottles with a specific length collar around the top of your bottle. The ones from your LHB would be a perfect example of this.

compare the tops of these two bottles:

good: http://www.calglass-pcc.com/catalog/beer/domestic/images/DB3_12oz_amber.jpg

bad: https://secure.eyerstation.com/eintown/images/drinks_awrootbeerbottle_12oz.jpg

Also, is it possible you were using some european bottles with a different sized opening?

How did you sanitize them? Some people bake them in the oven which could contribute to the problem.

Did they get scratched last time they were opened along the lip of the opening?


just some thoughts.

kvh