If using a wing capper, you have to watch certain stubbies like Abita. They don't work well. Best thing is to get a bench capper because it works with all. See photo. Abita on the right has a shorter distance from the top to bottom of rim. Bad for wing capper. Sierra nevada is ok though.
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This was going to be my response. I almost exclusively use stubbies for space saving, and I hate hate hate capping those "short skirt" Abita type bottles. Off the top of my head Lagunitas and Founders both use them as well. You develop an eye for the flare length pretty quickly. The trick with those is to tighten the jaws of the capper slowly until they "engage" with the flare, then clamp down as usual. If you just clamp down from the get go, the jaws will tighten around the neck, then slip and slam into the flare, which in the worst scenario, will break the bottle. Now that I've figured that trick out, I'm not so reluctant to use those. I still hate them though
Sierra Nevada bottles are my hands-down favorite. Sturdy, easy to get a brush in and scrub, comfortable to cap, and there are almost never thin spots, bubbles, or imperfections in the glass. Sierra doesn't mess around. The beer isn't too bad either.
For longnecks, Stone has the most consistent thickness, imperfection-free, sturdiest bottles. Ballast Point, New Belgium, and Deschutes have very nice bottles, too.
I weigh all of my bottles. Or at least used to, once you start doing it, its easy to tell heavier ones vs lighter ones
Deschutes, Stone, adn a few others have notably heavier bottles. Most 12oz bottles (longneck or stubby) are 195-205g. Deschutes and Stones bottles are 225-230. I save these for higher carbed beers like saisons. The super heavy european style ones, usually over 300g per 12oz, I save for sours and brett beers incase the keep fermenting in the bottle.
Great info here. I'll have to keep this in mind when bottling high carb Belgians and Weizens. Usually I just wrap the standard American bottles in grocery produce bags and cross my fingers. No breakages so far, knock on wood. I also save heavy gauge Euro bottles and the old Green Flash Rayon Vert bottles (oh how I miss thee) exclusively for Brett and wild/fruit secondary beers.
My impression is LHBS bottles appear thinner/less weight as mentioned above..
I was always told they were thicker and heavier and wondered if my LHBS were just a bunch of cheapos. I also notice that those bottles tend be littered with thin spots. Just hold a bottle up to the light and rotate, you can obviously see the difference in color where the thin spots are. It's almost like leopard spots on some of them.