I don't know. That's one of the reasons I was wondering about this. Maybe the caps simply will not reseal good enough to hold up to the pressure of bottle conditioning, I don't know. I will be bottling some next week, so I'm thinking about trying one or two bottles to see what happens. I kinda figured somebody out there knows a trick or a real fix.
I know some of you are laughing at me seemingly kicking a dead horse, I'm laughing too, but it seems to me that there is a cap out there somewhere, say off a medicine bottle, that will screw on a threaded beer bottle snugly. And if you put in a silicone seal, say like a Grolsch gasket or something of the like, you could torque it enough with a good twist to seal a conditioning bottle of beer without fear of it leaking down. I was kinda hoping someone has done something like this with success that they would share with us. As far as bottles go, I'm not hurting. I've got several hundred swing-top style bottles and countless crown cap bottles, so I'm not doing this for need of bottles. Any ideas anyone?
I tend to only notice it's a twist off after I have levered the cap off most times.
They have "twist off" written right there on the crown. At least they did back when I was buying brands that used twist of caps. But given a church key close by, I use an opener too.
I fail to notice the arrows, I try not to drink in church!They have "twist off" written right there on the crown. At least they did back when I was buying brands that used twist of caps. But given a church key close by, I use an opener too.
I used 0.5l pet sparkling water bottles for years. Big plus, the bottles can come with almost perfect brewing water!
Thanks much. I knew there had to be somebody here that isn't afraid to think out of the box. Something like this is why I posted this thread. The idea came to me recently when I remembered back to the 80's when I kept several plastic caps in a kitchen drawer just to screw onto a beer I didn't want to pour out. They screwed down real tight and your beer would keep without loss of carbonation. When I remembered that, I thought that maybe it would work nowadays for conditioning homebrew in a threaded bottle. Can't remember what the caps came off of but it was probably the wife's soda. What is the name of the caps you show here, and where did you get them? Anybody else got something like this?
Thanks Joe P. I'll check these out. I have a few screw top bottles I've been wanting to test but like everybody else, have been reluctant. I'm sure there are other caps out there that will work, it's just finding them.
I spoke with a customer rep at a plant that manufactures new crown caps for twist-off's. He said many of their customers were home brewers that were successfully using their caps. He did recommend I test them with my bench capper and is sending me some samples to test. Will see what happens. Believe it or not, I have a cap from a brake fluid bottle that fits and torques down snugly. Should work. Planning on trying that too. Yes, I cleaned it real well.
I ordered a package of those caps from Amazon to test on a couple of twist-off bottled beers from each batch. I'm skeptical, but nothing ventured is nothing gained. I really feel there are caps out there that you can screw on to seal and be usable time and again, it's just finding them. Something like that would really make bottling day go a lot easier and quicker.
That would be a nice find. Good luck in your search and let us know if you ever find any that are of good use !
Hey Joe. My reusable caps came today. There was so many different options for these type caps @ Amazon that it is hard to choose which one to get. Unfortunately the option I chose will not work and are probably not the same as you have. They look very similar to the ones in your picture, even multi-colored, but these things are so soft and mushy they will never hold through the process of carbonation. I actually just put one on the High Life I'm drinking right now and I can flick it off with my finger with very little effort. I was expecting they would be hard rubber which I could see that possibly working. I'm not even going to try these. The one's I bought are $7.99 for 18. I just noticed in your picture that yours were $11.99. and the colors are slightly different than yours, so there is a difference.
Yeah, what you say is true. I've done some experimenting with several different brands of twist-off bottles and thus far I've had no failures, but I don't trust them for long period storage and like a lot of people have mentioned, the glass is thin, and I cringe every time I cap one and every time I open one. I'll continue to use some twist-offs when bottling each batch but the lions share will be bottled in regular bottles and flip-top Grolsch style bottles.
