homebrewandbeer.com

Once again, apologies for being such an absolute novice and all.

In the process of sterilising and washing bottles. I have been given a large amount of bottles recently, and I noticed a fair few of them are screwtops.

I only have a handcapper. Will this work ok?

should be fine, just use the crown seals designed for screwtops is all.

I use screwtop bottles without a problem

depending an what you class as a hand capper, a bench capper is no problems, but I believe the scissor type break a lot of bottles, and the mallet type, well you will need to be careful not to break bottles as well.

Two handed cappers will trash screw tops.
Hand cappers will work, but wear a protective glove.

Best $50(odd) I spent was on a bench capper, strongly recomend one, especially for screw top type bottles.

Cheers,

Greg.

I have always used screw tops capped using a bench capper and have never had a problem.

Not that I cap much anymore but I had a two handed lever capper that worked out fine

Dogger

I use scissor hand type. Don't break many.Maybe 1 in every 500.Dogger you must mostly keg. Never done that but sounds like less work. more time to enjoy

Best Investment I ever made was my draught system

Dogger

Fully agree Dogger.

too right on that front, kegging is far easier. The only downside is all the boys think so as well, mind you i have them trained now, they either bring brew ingredienst round or they turn up to help clean everything and put a brew down.

I do still cap some, mainly as take out brews for BBQ's etc

I concur about the bench capper. Never broken a bottle. Bench cappers are on of the greatest brewing inventions ever (apart from draught systems, of course, Dogger )

Cheers,

Oliver

All done.

Yeah, I was just using a mallet style system, as I am running low on $$ at the moment, but it seemed to all work out.

Stubbies are fine to hand cap, but watch out for the long necks. They are quite weak around the neck and will shatter if you even hold your tongue in the wrong place while tapping the crown on.

Andrew,
Hand cappers are okay, but I would wear leather gloves in case of breakage. As an extra safety measure get a large solid lid off a jar and drill a small hole in the centre. then remove the screw from your hand capper and use the lid as a washer between the handle and the cup.

When I started my budget was limited and made my own benchcapper. Nothing fancy but it worked well and haven't bothered to upgrade to a real one.

BPJ,

Please, never "upgrade".

Your home-made capper is a thing of beauty (plus it puts caps on bottles).

Oliver

I bought a Brigalow bench capper yesterday, and tested it with four spare caps, on some empty VB stubbies, (donated by friends, I didn't actually down them myself), the bottom of the cap looks a little too "flat" formy liking, not quite "wrapped" around the bottom of the screw top glass bit.

I changed out the capping bell from the hand capper I previously purchased (but never used as I've never capped glass yet, long story), and this did exactly the same job, the cap doesn't seem to have been fully "capped". Is this a problem, or is this just how the bench cappers do it?

crude drawing but:

____ rather than _____
[ ] [ ]
/ \ [ ]

I'll try to post a photo later if required.

I made the same observation when I first used a bench capper (monday ). Before bottling beer I put some water in a stubby, capped it, then left it upside down for a couple of hours. No leak. That was good enough for me.

General,

Don't be afraid to use a fair bit of pressure when using a bench capper. Glass is actually quite strong.

Just don't hold the bottle or the upright next to the bottle when you're capping, as if the bottle smashes you can say bye-bye to your hand.

Having said that, I've never smashed a bottle with a bench capper, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

Cheers,

Oliver

General this is how mine turn out. THe critical part that holds the cap on is the indents on the side. if you are using twist tops you should see the thread leaving an impression.

BPJ,

Yours look a lot better than mine, mine flare extremely, I'll be testing with water (thanks for the idea).

The "critical" point looks good, so here's hoping.

I couldn't think of a tragedy worse than losing a batch due to poor seals.