Breaking the neck/ rim while bottling beer

[MikeP710]

While capping bottles from a five gallon batch, I broke four bottles right at the cap line. Is this common?

 

[Yooper]

While capping bottles from a five gallon batch, I broke four bottles right at the cap line. Is this common?

Not at all. It sounds like you used some thinner necked bottles, like those on twist offs. Those will break when you try to cap them. But other pry-off bottles won't.

 

[orangemen5]

They break every once in a while. I've bottled over 30 batches probably broke 1/2 a dozen bottles.

 

[orangemen5]

That's about 1500 bottles. So 4 in one batch is a lot. I agree with yooper Prob twist offs.

 

[MikeP710]

Thanks. They were all re-capable just different brands. Two were Sam Adams. One was a green bottle. The ones I purchased from Adventures in Homebrewing caped fine. Unfortunately, I poured those bottles because I was concerned of glass fragments if I re-bottled.

 

[BigFloyd]

While capping bottles from a five gallon batch, I broke four bottles right at the cap line. Is this common?

It can be if you're using a wing capper. The most problematic bottles, although not twist-offs, have the small ring below the cap ring (instead of a substantially wide collar). My wing capper used to give me enough problems with those sorts of bottles that I tossed a bunch of them in the trash.

Fast forward to now owning a super bench capper mounted on a 3/4" board. That thing handles all types of bottles (not twist-offs, of course) I throw at it without fail. It's also faster and much more enjoyable to use than the wing capper. If you do much bottling, the upgrade from the wing capper to the super bench capper is well worth it.

A guy that works for me told me this morning that he bought a Mr. Beer kit on sale for $15 and wants to try his hand at brewing. I'm going to donate to him my wing capper and also try to help him (via steeping grains, DME, hops and temp control) turn that can of HME into something at least half-way drinkable.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

It has to do with the depth of the collar of the bottle. When I first started brewing I saved up lots of Guinness and Anchor bottles because I liked the shape. However, the collar of the bottle was too short, so I got 1 reuse out of them before they started cracking and failing. I switched to bottles from my LHBS and Smithwicks bottles with a deeper collar - perfect. The wing capper pops through and always a perfect cap job.

A little bottle terminology:

Small Collar = BAD (Example, Guinness)

Big Collar = GOOD (Example, Smithwicks)

NOTE - I effing love both Guinness and Smithwicks, just commenting on the bottles.

 

[paperairplane]

Dos Equis bottles have the small collar, have to be really careful to get a good cap. I have broken 2 out of the last 200 - 1%. Slow down, be careful.