Reusing Beau's (Ottawa) beer bottles...

Tried to cap some Beau's bottles for reuse with my cider. No luck getting a cap on with my red baron capper...

Here's a pic of the tops:


And the caps...Brewer's Best caps have 19's on them, Beau's have 23...does that mean something? To my untrained eye and relative newness to this great hobby, they look about the same size...



Want so badly to use these bottles...am I using the wrong sized caps? Would a floor capper get a standard cap on?

 

here's what the bottles look like:

 

There is a 29 mm cap also. Im unsure if they would be snug enough to hold pressure/carbonate if indeed that is a 23mm cap. There is a bell for the red baron cappers that will properly crimp a 29mm cap. The 29mm caps are usually on champagne and belgian bottles.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/european-bottle-capping-bell-housing-red-baron-capper.html

 

To further add to the mystery, tried again to cap with my red baron without success...UNTIL I uncapped another bottle and used a crimped cap that I pushed on and seemed to be able to seal...

Wonder why...

And how do I check for a good seal?

 

The issue is the lip doesn't grab properly with a hand capper, it's too tall to line up with the metal "wings" -- they're still standard US crimp caps, though. I use an old bench capper for bottling in Beau's bottles (which are great -- the right size, sturdy, and the beer inside is excellent.)

 

A friend of mine has had success using a wine bottle capper.

 

I tried the same thing this weekend. One of the local shops (Peluso) sells empties so I got 2 cases of empty Beaus, cleaned and sanitized them only to find that the bottle cap size doesnt work and that my red baron wouldnt fit the cap all the way (it wouldnt crimp)

Any suggestions?

 

Not sure you can do anything with that capper. The neck just doesn't give you anything for the capper to pull the cap down with. I've bottled in Beau's bottles with no problem, but always use a stand capper. Standard cap size worked fine.

 

Awesome thanks. I have a few friends with stand cappers.

 

@geordan hit the nail, you need a bench capper to do it smoothly. What I did was basically roll my capper around the edges with good luck. Not ideal but it works

 

Tried it with a Bench capper this weekend. Works perfect. Peluso in Montreal sells empties at the refund price, just wash them out. Found a bunch of cigarette butts in a few of them. Not fun when soaking the labels off when there are a few butts floating in the sink