beer bottles

The standard answer is that those "regular" bottles will be a little thinner and easier to break, but you can use them if you are careful and it is almost necessary for you to have a bench style capper in order to keep from breaking some necks (which is common with wing cappers).

Personally, I've only used a few and had mixed results (which could have been conincidence). One particular six pack of screw type bottles didn't seem to carbonate at all... so I figured I wasn't getting a good seal with them. The other six pack worked fine.

Derric

Get a bottle capper and use the brown non twistoff bottles. They work great.

-David

Ya, I have been using non-twist caps ever since i started home-brewing....I was just looking for a more economical way of doing it, thats all.

Joe

another option is to recycle Grolsch bottles, with their handy dandy "self capping" design. Been using them for a while (as well as other commercial brews/bottles with similar setups) and they work great. If you insist on brown bottles, Grolsch has an amber ale that comes in brown bottles. Just make sure the rubber gaskets are in good shape so they don't leak. They will wear out with age and use.

bob p.

I've thought about getting some of these recycling center, but I've seen what some people put in old bottles. How do you know how clean you've gotten them when you can't see through the glass?

Chris

If that's the worst of my problems, I can live with it. ;-)

bob p.

Lots of hot soapy water, a good stiff bottle brush and a MagLite 4-cell work for me.

Soak, scrub/lather, rinse, repeat...

bob p.

That's a hard way to wash bottles. If you just soak them overnight in a mild bleach solution you will never have to scrub another bottle again. I used to use BBs to clean the inside of my bottles. I would swirl the shot around and it would knock any crud or residue out of the bottle very effectively. Bleach will do the same thing and you don't have to lift a finger. It doesn't have to be a very strong solution, one or two tablespoonfuls per gallon will do it. Sparkling clean! One of those bottle washing attachments that attaches to your kitchen sink is a must also. The bleach rinses out easily and any that may be left evaporates, unlike soap residue.

as i began adding bottles/gathering from friends for use, i got some in pretty gross condition. god only knows what they'd been keeping in them. that's where the old-fashioned "soak, scrub, rinse, repeat" comes in. once "clean" from that standpoint, they're ready for routine maintenace and use.

for bottles already in routine use, i actually pretty much follow your regimen; soak overnight in bleach solution of 1 1/2 tbls per gallon water, rinse well with hot water (I've got one of those bottle injector doohickey's that works a lot faster than "fill and empty") and set out to air dry immediately before bottling. key is to sanitize them, which the bleach solution does well. there are commercial sanitizers available, but bleach works good enough for me.

it's all good...

bob p.