sturdy HB bottle boxes

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unionrdr

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After due consideration of the fact that we've discussed Commercial beers with bottles good for home brewing, I decided to start a thread about commercial beer boxes sturdy enough to make those stacks of bottles awaiting contents as compact as possible. I,my wife,& son have been buying craft beers in 12's & cases that have sturdier,thicker boxes,some with separators,that we can store bottles/brews in. So far the brands in this category are (T= twist off bottles,just use boxes);
Leinenkugel's (with separators) T
Labatt cases (with separators) T? (son gave me this one)
Dundee
Great Lakes
Magic Hat
They also have nice finger holes or slots as well. I had collected a small mountain of bottles that were either in cheap,thin boxes,or just 6'rs. So I used any odd size boxes I could find. It just made for a more unruly,large conglomeration of boxed bottles. Now that stack is smaller, & much neater.
Thought this might be worth mentioning as well as which bottles were re-useable.
 
I have used Walmart file storage crates. They hold 24-30 beers depending on make of bottles and stack pretty well.

I have been really wanting to do some all wood 6 packs and a "case" that would hold 4 of them. This months "BREW" magazine has a neat article on how to make the 6ers, I would like to use. (But I would make mine to hold the 22oz fliptops I have been collecting. To many projects lack of time and funds...lol.
 
Were the SN's thin paste board,or sturdy cardboard like those mentioned? we only had the 6'rs at Giant Eagle. I have a low,wide box that I can fit some case & a half of SN stubbies in. They fit too tight in the reg beer boxes I mentioned.
 
I have been chugging Straub 16 oz returnable bottles both for the bottles as well as the boxes. I dont want to hear the naysayers about how its illegal to keep the bottles. I'm borrowing them.
 
I found a wooden wine case box that holds 27 22 oz bottles really well: 4x6 +3 more fit great in the space left over. Seems to work well to store a 5 gal batch, assuming some loss to tasting/sampling/transfers. I got the box at Costco. They are pretty good about letting you take stuff like that. Usually just ask the front end manager if they have anything. Wish I was @ home so I could get the dims. Maybe I'll edit this post when I get home.

Edit: Inside dimensions: 20"x12.5"x7"
The walls are .5" thick and reach to about the height a 22 oz bottle begins to neck down.
 
Why would it be illegal to keep them? Those wooden wine boxes sound interesting. Now that's sturdy!

I dunno, maybe they arent. You have to put a deposit on them (like $1.50). I just thought the same legal/ethical issues that come up with people taking kegs would come up with these bottles. I'm sure it costs them more than 1.50 to produce the bottles/box. But then again maybe they integrate some of that cost into the beer itself. I dunno, I dont really care, the boxes are awesome!
 
I use commercial milk crates. I never trusted the cardboard cases after getting wet a couple times. Plus I have a hodge-podge of bottle sizes and the milk crates contain everything except the tallest 22's.
 
I've been getting apple boxes with slide on lids from the supermarket. There are two basic shapes/heights. I make the dividers from cardbord boxes that were destined for recycling. The dividers are sized for 22 oz bottles even though I lose some case capacity when the current brew is going in 16 oz bottles. Apple boxes are very heavy duty.
 
Milk crates aren't very light proof,though. Unless you have a dark room you can dedicate to beer storage that doesn't get too warm. And away from the light,as milk crates are more web like in construction. And the 12 & 24 bottle boxes are quite sturdy if you don't get them wet. I keep them in the comp room next to my brewing stand in said boxes. And wet bottles go on the bottle tree till dry before storage. So the boxes stay dry & in good condition.
 
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