Used Bottles and Corks?

I live in Taiwan and am just getting into home brewing. An issue here is that there really is no homebrew sub-culture (at least not of the kind back home in the States) so it can be difficult to locate equipment. As such I am not in a place that I can really go out and buy bottles and a capper.

My strategy so far has been to buy and drink Grolsch whenever I feel like a beer. This has been going well and with friends helping I should be hitting that 40-41 bottle mark soon enough. But I am starting to feel ambitious about my potential home brewing. In addition to doing some fairly regular beer batches (one every two or three months) I am also interested in trying some meads and barley wine. I will continue to recycle these Grolsch bottles and keep drinking more, but I could see how within the next year or two 40 bottle won't cut it, particularly for the varieties that need to sit in the bottle much longer to be in there prime. Any suggestions on other options?

One thought I had was to use old wine bottles. If I could collect used wine bottles from friends and restaurants/bars I could probably get quite a few in a relatively short time. In this case I would have to cap them by using already used corks and just shoving them in by hand. Assuming I used reasonably undamaged corks, synthetic ones when I can get them, would this be an ok option for the mead and barley wine?

are you saying there are no bottles in taiwan that can't be recaped? I know the capper would be an investment, (or look into the diy way) but I would say crown caps can't be that bad on shipping over there (just remember bulk= savings)

but how ever you do it, good luck, and don't give up

i wouldn't re-use natural corks. synthetic...maybe.

but i too vote for a crown capper.

question though...if there's no real homebrew culture there, where are you getting all your ingredients??

Well, I make periodic trips back to the States, and at time have friends come to visit. Thats how I get beer supplies. Also, I have access to honey for mead making locally. I have decided to invest in a capper. I found a potentially cheap but light two handled hand one that is not to easy to ship over. However, I am still curious about the suitability of wine bottles with used corks.

if you must re-use corks, only use the synthetic ones. natural cork absorbs flavors, and the drying/wetting/drying/wetting of natural cork really breaks it down over time.

there are several wineries in the states that bottle great wine with twist top caps that might seal tightly enough. keep an eye out for those too.