bottle breaks on opening

Ugh, so precious few apfelwein left from last October batch. Looks to be a bells bottle. It's happened 2 or 3 times out of 6 batches. Normal or am I unlucky? Makes me want to keg.

Edit: might be odells, I forget who was the leafs on the bottle.

I've had the upper rim to the bottle stay in the cap when removed, but nothing like that.

I had these problems back when I used a butterfly capper, but when I got my bench capper I never had a problem again!

I do use a butterfly capper. Don't know where I'd mount a bench capper at the moment. Although I have the space so I'm probably not being inventive enough.

I didn't mount mine to anything. I take it out on bottling day and put it on a silicon baking mat on my kitchen counter. This way it doesn't slip or damage the countertop..

Weird. Never happened to me with my red baron capper. And Bell's bottles are completely blank, so it's not Bell's...

I had a Black Beauty wing capper that ended up with a bent metal flange after a few uses. It started cracking bottles, so that's when I ordered my bench capper. The bench capper will literally cap any brand of bottle that I throw at it. Unlike wing capper's which aren't as forgiving with certain brands/types of bottles (from what I've read and experienced.. YMMV)....

Looks like Odell's to me. I haven't bottled anything since I started drinking their beer, so I can't offer anything as to the quality for aftermarket use.

That definitely looks like an Odell's bottle. They are thin (as are New Belgium, which I think are actually thinner). Those are the only two types of bottles I have had crack on me. However, mine cracked when capping (I use a black beauty butterfly/wing capper also). Were the other ones that cracked also Odell's?

FWIW, I bottle more than I keg (probably 150 bottles/month) and have had only 3 broken bottles in the last 2 years. 2 were New Belgium, one was Odell's.

If you are using a thin cap remover/opener (like on a swiss army knife or typical bar toolset), try using a wide one instead (like on the end of one of those wing cork removers, or a paint can opener). These seem to put less stress on the bottle when opening. Basically, if the remover bends the cap much, try something with more breadth of contact on the cap. I think the thinner ones tend to make the sides of the cap push inward while bending the cap and popping it off (hope that made sense... kind of hard to describe).

get a hold of some Canadian beer bottles.....thicker glass, never break one again.

I had it happen a couple of times too with NB bottles I think.. I use a colanna capper now and absolutely love it.. it will cap/cork anything, even belgians !!