I was told that twist off bottles would not recap but I tried a couple and they seemed to work just fine. anyone else have any experience with this. I can't find bottles that are not twist off. Also I used Mt. Dew bottles and they seemed to work.
Some will work, some will not. Many of the twist off bottles are made of extremely thin glass and will break easily if you are not extremely careful while capping. Others do not have a shoulder at the right lever for a wing type capper to grab and seal. Many folks recommend a bench capper for those bottles, but I have had quite a number of those bottles break (crushed) when using the bench capper. You just need to experiment and keep a list of the brands that work for you.
On those rare occasions when I do buy commercial beer, I use the type of bottle as one of the criteria when deciding what to get. I avoid twist off bottles unless I want that particular brand really bad.
Wayne Bugeater Brewing Company
Depends what country you are from. Canada the twist off glass bottles are reused by many breweries (they are much thicker than the american ones and will stand up to many washings and bottlings). My only problem with them is if you are bottle priming they will not always hold the seal as well as a pop top bottle. If I use a counter-pressure bottle filler I have no problems, but bottle priming often leaves some under carbonated (my assumtion is the immediate pressure helps seal the cap).
Mt. Dew (I assume plastic) will work. You have to be careful about some of the plastic bottles since they are not made to be reused per se (I've seen some pop bottle explode in a counterpressure filler). Some aren't as thick as the PET bottles you would buy at a LHBS. Although I have heard of people using them successfully for quite a while (I've used 2L bottles myself even). Definitely stay away from plastic water bottles (filtered water etc), they are super thin and not designed for any pressure.
In my early days of brewing I have been known to use twist off bottles, tequila bottle, and even 2 litre coke bottle. From my experience with each I found the twist offs did well, but I should note I was worried about sealing so I wrapped electrical tape around the edges to help in that area. The tequila bottle worked but the brew never really carbinated well. The 2 Litre coke bottle also worked but as with the tequila bottle it didn't seem to carbinate well and the brew had a different taste then what was in normal bottles. Now days I use only bottles made for bottling brew. I will of course keep the mountain dew thing in the back of my mind in case I run out of beer bottles while bottling.
Me too
With all due respect, I and quite a few other people I know charge plastic water bottles up to 40 psi all the time.
Michael
Twist off beer bottles don't seem to work well for me or anyone that I know. They will seal but it is tenuous. My butterfly capper doesn't work well with most of them. The twist off bottles appear to lack the indention/flute/ring that the caps grab on to. I have actually been able to remove my caps from a twist off bottle with upward pressure using my thumb (Michelob lager bottle). Killian Red bottles seem to accept a cap better but I still wouldn't trust an entire batch to those bottles.
On the other hand, plastic soda bottles work great. But remember that light makes your beer skunky. Clear and green bottles don't block the wavelengths of light that ruin beer, only brown does. If you recycle plastic soda bottles for beer then keep them in the dark all the time.
If I were to pick a readily available beer to harvest bottles from it would be Red Stripe. They are brown, seal very well but you can't get the darned labels off.
Laz
I have never tried the twist-off bottles for fear of wasting beer if it didn't work, but when I need bottles, I just go to a local bar and buy a couple cases of bottles from them (requesting, of course, only the pop-top bottles). They don't mind because it saves them from having to take them back to the can redemption place ($0.10/ea in IA). They always give me Bud, Bud Light, and Miller Lite bottles, I assume the other big brands are twist-offs. Just remember to clean the bottles right away, I usually give a quick rinse, then soak them overnight in my big utility sink with some type of sanitizing solution. The labels pretty much slide right off the next day.
Just my $0.02, Scotty B
Thanks for the info. I didn't know green bottles didn't block the light. The used beer bottles I bought from the wine supply store were green. I'd like to find a brand of beer that is not twist off. That way when I do buy beer I can buy bottles that can be reused for hombrew.
Strange. EVERY Bud, Bud Lite and Miller Lite bottle I've ever had used twist off caps and not pop-tops. I wonder if you are getting twist off bottles, and just having good luck with them when capping.
Probably just a location thing. I am certain they are pop-tops (pretty hard to mistake the two, isn't it?). In fact, last time they accidentally missed one of the screw-tops (a Coors) so I only got 47 good bottles out of the two cases. Oh well, at least I can still take it to the redemption center and get my $0.10 back.
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