Question about Bottling

Jelisa08 · Post by **Jelisa08** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:34 pm

Hey there,

I found this website while looking for some information about bottling homebrew. I am going to be using 12oz glass bottles for my next batch and I had a question about re-using twist cap bottles, AKA Bud Light, Etc. Can they be recapped? Any info would be great.

thanks!

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:43 pm

Howdy and welcome to Brewcommune!

I'm not aware of any successes in recapping twist offs. Most cappers that I know of are "crimp on" style. If you've got a bench capper, any regularly capped bottle can be redone. If it is a wing or butterfly style of capper, the length of the ridge beneath the crimp rim is important (it must be longer for wing cappers). Long neck bottles typically (but not always) have longer ridges.

Good luck and please stop by and let us know how you made out (or if you find a different answer!)

Dan

Jelisa08 · Post by **Jelisa08** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 5:45 pm

thanks for the reply! I guess I will just have to pound down this budlight that I bought to use for rebottling and then go but some "real" beer. I don't have a bench capper yet and it might be a while before I get one so hopefully all goes well on my attempt at bottling!

thanks

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:34 pm

Jelisa08 wrote:thanks for the reply! I guess I will just have to pound down this budlight that I bought to use for rebottling and then go but some "real" beer. I don't have a bench capper yet and it might be a while before I get one so hopefully all goes well on my attempt at bottling!

thanks

I've bottled using regular caps on twist offs before and it seemed to work just fine. That being said, I don't bottle as much as I used to but when I do, I make sure to use the 'real beer' bottles rather than the twist off style.

backyard brewer · Post by **backyard brewer** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:50 pm

I've used them and they will sorta work, but not real well. Lots of bad seals and beer that never carbonates.

If you like a light refreshing beer, I have found Pacifico bottles cap great, the labels fall right off and the beer ain't half bad!

dhempy · Post by **dhempy** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:04 pm

Jelisa08 wrote:thanks for the reply! I guess I will just have to pound down this budlight that I bought to use for rebottling and then go but some "real" beer. I don't have a bench capper yet and it might be a while before I get one so hopefully all goes well on my attempt at bottling!

thanks

Good luck! Be sure to look for bottles with the longer ridge below the crimp lip.

Pacifico is a good choice but my wing capper occasionally misses on these because the lip isn't quite as long as pictured above. My bench capper however, will cap these all day long with no issues. See our recent oxyclean thread on cleaning labels.

Here is another thread on twist offs .. some folks are having luck it seems.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/twist-t ... les-71425/

Dan

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 8:35 pm

I guess I should add that I've always used a bench capper and not a wing capper. Perhaps that was the 'trick' like dhempy mentions.

huntfisher · Post by **huntfisher** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:00 pm

But, the glass of bud bottles are pretty thin

Rezzin · Post by **Rezzin** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:27 pm

huntfisher wrote:But, the glass of bud bottles are pretty thin

Thanks for catching that hunt, when I would bottle using the twist off bottles - I was using the SN Pale Ale bottles.