Does anyone use twist off bottle and caps for bottling, and if so where can you purchase them. Also what is the pro and cons of both caps. I would prefer to use twist off for easier removal of caps and the lack of bottle openers in my house.
Sealing twist tops is a bit of hit & miss. A bench capper will cap them with reasonable success, a wing capper wont work (in my experience with different types of twist top bottles). You will get bottles that wont seal properly and you will possibly get breakages as you force the caps on. As for your question as to special tops for the purpose - not as far as I am aware - you use normal caps. Personally I don't use twist bottles because of the problems. Steve W.
I've been reusing commercial twist off bottle caps for over 3 years. I still buy a few cases of beer each month and save the caps. When bottling time comes around, I put as many caps as I need in hot water. As each bottle gets filled up I reach in the water,grab a cap and twist it on. I need to use an old towel or thin glove when i'm bottling 62 pints. After a few caps you run the risk of getting blisters. I have had very very good success with this method. Any time I had a flat beer I would mark an 'X' on the neck of the bottle. If the bottle produced another flat pint I would include it in the returns. Of the few times I did get flat beer it was from a bottle with a defect or chip on the sealing surface. I now keg my beer but there are still 12 pints left over each time I brew. I cap them in this way. Cheers & beer. Scott.>
I have never had a problem bottling twist topped bottles in 6 years of brewing. If you are in Australia then the normal commercial bottles of Coopers, VB, Toheys all cap fine with a bench capper which is the only capper I have ever used. I have heard North American bottles are soft and smash easy.
Personally, I have always found that twist off caps rip my hands to shreds when trying to get them off. Because of this I always use a towel or some kind of protection.
You can buy bottle openers for next to nothing so it may well be worth investing in one!
I get my twist offs from our local home brew shop here on Prince Edward Island, Canada. I think it has more to do with the top of the beer bottle than the caps themselves. Grumpy.
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"PieOPah" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
I bought some thin leather gloves for putting them on with, problem is that you really need them to get them off again too. I get them a lot tighter than the standard comercial ones, but there's no easy way to gauge that so I just go as tight was I can.
Me to, I have had no problems after 5 years straight (15 years on and off) Some brands (tops) are eaiser and harder to undo but do the same job. I use VB stubbies.
Hep Perth Western Australia
I am not sure I understand the comments here. Are you saying that you regularly use stubbies which are sold originally with twist off caps. Thats to say you re-use the original twist off caps????? I have tried that & found the successful re-use of twist off caps is a problem. I am unable to apply enough tightening force by hand, & after the first dozen or so, the skin on my fingers gets a bit worse for wear. I have tried tightening up the twist a fraction, with a pair of mult-grip pliers, but doing this I have wrecked a few of the twist tops. Also I have found a few flat bottles that for some reason failed to seal. My observation also is that some brands are easier to manage than others. Is it possible to use regular crown seals, applied to twist top stubbie bottles, with a capper. This I can't try for myself, I junked my capper years ago. Pete
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