Screw Cap Bottles..... tempting....

[jshell55]

I have read all of the comments pro and con about the use of screw top bottles to store my home brew....the general tone of the conversation is leaning toward negative....although there are some people that do this anyway..

But, I have an opportunity... A local guy down here has a lot of surplus beer bottles that he bought for a non-beer-related project, and he wants to get rid of them for much less than the exploitative price that the home brew guy wants for his....

I can get the type of bottlecap that was engineered for these screw-on bottles, it will cost me some more dollars but do-able.....I don't happen to know the detail on why these screw on caps are different from the gold ones that I have been using....one question I have is, is some of the problem people have in using these bottles due to the fact that they're using the regular bottlecaps that were not engineered for these bottles? Maybe the success rate would be higher if I used the right caps....

So the question is, if screw on bottles are so bad, how do the commercial brewers use them? Why couldn't I, an engineer in my day job, figure out a way to bottle these things so that they would not break the bottle and would not leak? Do they spin them on some how? Why could I not just use them once and throw them like the brewery does? That way I would not have to wash my bottles either....

If I were to do such a thing would I not be smart to try to sell off some of my surplus beer bottles a case at a time with the screw-on type caps, and maybe recover some of my costs? Would some of you forum dwellers be interested in such a thing, if I could get them to you? I suppose it would take me a couple of years to go through them at my current rate....

What am I missing here, aside from the fact of course that it would require work on my part, and work is less fun than drinking beer.....

 

[GaryJohn]

I think the only reason people say not to use them is because the caps cannot be reliably put on with a wing-capper or table capper that most homebrewers use. The bottles themselves are fine...its capping them without breaking the bottle or without creating a good seal that is the proposed problem.

Now, all the threads I've read usually have 2 types of people commenting in them. 1) people that say not to use screw on bottles because they heard they were bad, and 2) people that say its ok to use them, and they use them just fine all the time.

So, to me it seems like hearsay vs proven trials. BUT, who knows! I'm going to try it myself with a couple bottles in a few weeks.

 

[jshell55]

Hey, you're appealing to my sense of science.... I do have a batch that needs to be bottled, so I might just as well try 'em out on a small scale just to see what happens....

 

[GaryJohn]

Seems like the best way to me! Try it out on an empy bottle first, or one with water in it, in case the bottle doesn't fit the capper right, and it does break. Don't want to risk precious beer!

 

[SweetSounds]

I have had a few threaded bottles make it into a bottling day. I use a wing capper, and it likes to decapitate the bottles

Though 1 or 2 did make it, and held just fine.

I have heard, though, that a proper and adjusted bench capper can be used on threaded bottles without issue. I don't own a bench capper (I've kegged since batch 1) so I can't say for sure that it's true....

 

[prosper]

I use a bench capper and twisties all the time. Never had one break, out of thousands capped. This includes the heavier 'reusuable' twisties that we have here in Canada, as well as the lighter 'recyclable' twisties (not intended for reuse), from some imports

 

[Crinkle]

I've got a dozen or so that have been in my rotation for years, I've capped with a wing capper and normal caps, and have never had a problem with them.:rockin:

 

[Pivovar_Koucky]

If you put regular homebrew caps on twist-off bottles, you can't twist the resulting caps off, right? Seems like an awfull lot of work to me. It's your time though, good luck.

 

[Blackgaurd_Brewing]

I have a wing capper and once tried twist offs with others, the twist offs would not seal for me.

 

[devilishprune]

If you put regular homebrew caps on twist-off bottles, you can't twist the resulting caps off, right? Seems like an awfull lot of work to me. It's your time though, good luck.

Yes, you can twist them off. The crimping action of the capper kind of forms them to the tops of the bottles. It indents the screws into the cap and you can twist them off.

I have a couple twist offs in my bottle collection, and I have never broken one. I'm beginning to think that you must have to have superhuman strength to break the top of a bottle. Either that, or I am just able to perfectly and delicately crimp each and every cap I do .

 

[DeNomad]

The only bottle I have broken the neck on was a crown cap, I REALLY muscled that one using a wing capper though, lesson learned. Over half my bottles are twist off Canadian bottles. Apparently the bottles are a bit thicker when you cross the border (or so I am told).

As everyone else says test a few out yourself and see if it works with your set-up.