Anyone use these for bottling?

I'm new and planning ahead for bottling about 2 weeks from now. I like these Mississippi Muds, hard to beat at $2.50 for 32oz, and if I can reuse the screw cap bottles, win-win. The label is a plastic sheath that even cuts off really easily.

My major reservation is whether they will seal tight enough for carbing to work. The caps are metal and seem pretty sturdy. Anyone ever reuse these? Any tricks I can use to ensure a tighter seal with this type of screw cap bottle?

Most folks eschew screw caps, but hey, try a bottle. If it still has the insert in the cap, all the better. Maybe flip it over. Or maybe try a piece of good plastic wrap cut to fit as an additional gasket.

I haven't had issues with a cap resealing, but that doesn't mean it will seal good for you. Folks here will probably say that the glass is good enough for pressures obtained during carbonation, but I see it no worse than that for a bottle.

Make sure you closed the cap tight, but not so tight that you strip it.

Unless you have some sort of equipment to seal the screw tops, I doubt it'll hold carbonation. My logic is that when you open a bottle of soda and screw the top back on (no matter how tight) the soda still goes flat after a while since the seal was broken and is no longer air tight. Maybe it's different for glass containers.

I would just recycle normal bottles.

Be somewhat safe. Bottle most of your next batch in standard bottles and try a couple of those. If they work well you can use more in the next batch without too much risk.

drathbone said:

Unless you have some sort of equipment to seal the screw tops, I doubt it'll hold carbonation. My logic is that when you open a bottle of soda and screw the top back on (no matter how tight) the soda still goes flat after a while since the seal was broken. Maybe it's different for glass containers.

I wouldn't do this for as a long term solution.

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I carb in used plastic soda bottles with used caps. Carbs up fine and they never leak or blow off..

It's more about that big initial release of CO2, less carbonated drink in the bottle and the agitation of pouring than it is loose caps.

But yeah, there is always the chance the cap won't seal right again. That little insert has already been crushed and maybe the cap got bent.

Thanks for the advice. I'll try a couple out and see how it goes. The lids have a silicone (?guessing?) coating inside the top of the lids for sealing against the glass mouth. I'd RDWHAHB, except this is batch #1...

A follow up question just occurred to me: Since these bottles hold 32oz will that change the volume of air space I need to leave at the top?

If you have a bottling wand just fill to the top as usual. If you have a manual siphon type bottling cane just fill it to the top too. Once you withdraw it your headspace will be set by the volume of the probe. Hope this helps.
Bob

Awesome thanks. I'm planning on going with the set up Revvy describes in the first picture:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/

So, if I understand correctly, that thing on the end of the tubing in the first picture... is a bottling wand, right?

drathbone said:

Unless you have some sort of equipment to seal the screw tops, I doubt it'll hold carbonation. My logic is that when you open a bottle of soda and screw the top back on (no matter how tight) the soda still goes flat after a while since the seal was broken and is no longer air tight. Maybe it's different for glass containers.

I would just recycle normal bottles.

Click to expand...

No the bottle goes flat because you are causing CO2 to come out of solution every time you open it and pour a glass of pop/beer/whatever was in there and fizzy. Also as the liquid goes down it is replaced by air space which the CO2 will fill up until the pressure is equalized in the bottle. This is why in a keg the CO2 pressure is kept on so the dead space is replaced with extra CO2.

I use screw top 500ml brown plastic bottles to bottle almost exclusively, the pros far outweigh the potential issues with them (for me: cheap, light, no glass shards, no tools needed, shows carbonation). But i DO NOT reuse the caps. That little plastic gasket/seal inside makes them to freaking hard to clean without scratching the plastic.

With metal caps that might be less of an issue as long as you don't scratch the plastic insert but you will need to clean under the insert to make sure nothing nasty is under there. I realize that this is an unlikely source of infection but you might describe my cleaning/sanitizing process as paranoid. Why take the chance, you have already spent a lot of time and money on your brew might as well make sure its going in clean bottles.

I will also point out I only reuse swing tops, and 500 - 650 ml bottles from micro and craft breweries. I don't trust that the Macro breweries in up here in Canada are using refillable, pressure rated bottles. They are so thin they threaten to break when you take the cap off them...

FWIW, tested one of these bottles out and it seemed to be just as carbed as the ones with traditional bottle caps. Also re-used a flip-top bottle with a rubber gasket on it as a test and all three bottling types seemed the same to me. Will use a few more next time and see if this holds up again (only did one bottle as the test).