More bottles

Anyone have any suggestions on where to get more bottles (free) I have all my friends saving their bottles for me, but they aren't exactly always reliable. I currently have about 40 but my bottle date is coming quick and I don't want to buy empty bottles.

 

Check in at a local bar, and see what they do with their empties. They might just let you have some.

 

Agree with checking at some bars. Make sure they aren't screw tops. A bar with a good selection or bottled craft/microbrews would be best. Have a few beers, chat up the waitress or bartender and ask if they could save them for you

 

It seems at first that accumulating bottles is difficult but if you mention around to people that you brew and need crown bottles they will start showing up. There's also craigslist, and freecycle.org, hooking up with other homebrewers, recycling centers. Asking at beerstores that have a good selection of beer for their returnables. Some stores will let you have their empties for the price of the deposit. And some bars will give you all you can haul out if you ask.

Also if you want to bottle in champagne bottles, go to a hall that does weddings, heck even a moose or vfw hall, you might just have to dumpster dive at worst, or just pick cases of empty asti bottles by the back door.

It seems daunting but you'll get plenty really fast. But in reality when you annouce you are homerbewing, they do come flying at you. I even had my building super years ago just use his key and leave me some on the dinning room table. He knew he'd get beer from me on a regular basis, especially if he was gonna do some work in my place.

 

Oh man I really hope it doesn't come to that, ha ha.

 

Thanks for all the great tips, I'll be sure to look into most of them!

 

If you lived in a state with a bottle recycling Act, I'd say go hang out at a recycling center with a few bucks and buy bottles from folks returning them...

Cheers!

 

If you have a costco membership, they have some rebranded beer that is fairly cheap, and I've heard of some just buying the beer, drinking it, and reusing the bottles for their own homebrew.

 

Recommend getting some growlers

 

Not to bottle carb/condition your beer. They're not really made to withstand the carbonation process. They're made to hold carbonated beer, that's NOT the same thing.

Carbonated and carbonating are 2 different animals, and 2 very different pressures.

Here's a very detailed post by Rukus that explains the pressure generated during carbonation, and how you run the risk of loosing your beer.

This might give you an idea...."Growler goes Boom"

There's a tons of threads like that. Some folks will say they have no problem, but others will say differently. To me, I sure as heck wouldn't want to play Russian Roulette with my beer.

 

I am a fan of Sam Adams, but now that I've got ~200 bottles, I'm starting to want to get rid of all of my bottles that aren't completely plain amber. Sam Adams have the Samuel Adams in cursive right below the neck, and it just doesn't look as nice when it's my own beer

My new favorite is buying beer that comes in swing-tops or big bombers (22oz) and drinking those instead.

 

So I just drank a whole lot of good beer and got more than enough bottles in 2 weeks, ha ha actually I have enough bottles for my next batch too

 

Beering is a social endeavor. Invite some friends over for Poker and insist they all bring a sixer of a beer that you need an opener to get into. You have a fun night socializing and tasting beers with friends and when thy all go home you get the bottles for your bottling. Once you bottle your first beer when it's ready give some away. Let people know you need bottles. people are much more likely to save bottles for you if they think they might get some tasty beers outa the deal. Good luck, Like Revy said, it's only hard at first, soon you'll have more bottles than you need.

 

Ha ha yeah I have 70 some bottles already I'm good to go

 

I initially got no help from friends or family, which was a bit disappointing, so wound up drinking beer more to get more bottles, since at .50c a piece from the local homebrew store for new ones, it wasn't worth my while.

I also put a want ad on our local online classifieds site requesting bottles, offering to pay .20c per, double what recyling would be and I'd pick em up. Got 60 from that from one lady. After that a friend wound up having his friends who play softball, save all their bottles. Two softball parties later and I have some 350 bottles.

The downside of the grabbag way of doing things is you get so many varieties, sizes, colors. Bit of a pain.

 

My local craft beer store has tastings every last friday. I go to their store when they open the next day and ask if I can have the 22 oz bottles they emptied. I then soak them in oxyclean free and rinse and dry.

When I lived in Oregon, I saved a bunch of 12 oz bottles and took them to a small store. Since the deposit for 12 and 22 oz bottles was the same, they let me switch them out.

 

Revvy - How do you cap a champaign bottle?