Bottle capper broke

didimcginty · Mar 2, 2015

Good evening,

I was wondering if I put my batch in the bottling bucket after adding priming sugar, filled 24 bottles so far, on the third I applied the cap to, my capper broke, is there anything I can do. No stores are open. Thanks in advance for any help.

day_trippr · Mar 2, 2015

Put the lid back on your bucket with an airlock or blow-off (don't seal it up) as the yeast will make quick work of the primer. The beer should be fine while you pick up a new capper, but you'll have to re-prime it when you get 'round to bottling again.

As for the cap-less bottles, they'll be better off if gently poured back into the bucket with the rest of the beer...

Cheers!

FatDragon · Mar 2, 2015

If you can take the bell off of the capper, you can put it on the loosely-capped bottles and give it some light taps with a hammer to crimp the caps on.

didimcginty · Mar 2, 2015

Thanks, Ill try a few with the hammer, if that doesn't work well for me I will pour back and try again. We'll see what happens, thank you again for your help, I appreciate it.

Chadwick · Mar 2, 2015

'Dear lord, I want to buy an extra bottle capper now. I always expected this might happen. I don't want to deal with it. On my list of "buy now" equipment. An extra bottle capper.

FatDragon · Mar 2, 2015

didimcginty said:
Thanks, Ill try a few with the hammer, if that doesn't work well for me I will pour back and try again. We'll see what happens, thank you again for your help, I appreciate it.

Tell us how it went - I might be doing the same thing soon if I can't find someone to weld a couple seams on my bench capper in the next couple days.

didimcginty · Mar 3, 2015

So I was wondering if I put it back in the bucket with the airlock and let it ferment out the priming sugar, could I then keg the beer?

TheHappyHopper · Mar 3, 2015

You could just keg the beer without waiting for the priming sugar to ferment out - people naturally carb kegs all the time. You may still have to do some force carbonating, depending on how much of the priming sugar the yeast have already eaten up.

didimcginty · Mar 3, 2015

That's great, I am ordering a keg system tomorrow, so I'll just leave it in the bucket until it arrives. I am sure by the time it ships the sugar will be eaten. Thank you for your help.