Types of Glass Bottles

[Trizza]

I've been using the Coopers PET Plastic bottles to great effect for the past year now, but now have decided that glass is the best option for several beers destined to be in the bottles for long periods of maturation ~ more than 2 years.

I understand that the seal on the Cooper's bottles has a life of 2 years, so I've made preparations to start using glass for several stouts, meads and barleywines later this year.
The problem is that there are several types of glass bottles that I could use for this, but I'm just not sure which would produce the best result.

I don't think I can easily get a hold of the old 750ml crown seal bottles so my options are:
640ml crown seal from the brew store (G&G) ~ $15 for 12, or
750ml twist top Coopers ~ $40 for 12 (but you get to drink them), or
800ml twist top CUB ~ $35 for 12 (and you have to empty them)

Aside from prices which are the best choice of bottles from those listed above?
Are there any differences in the strengths of the bottles mentioned above?

Trizza.

[gregb]

Coopers Tallies are now a roll top type and quite heavy glass too. Blurb on the Coopers Club forum was that they'd been created with the homebrewer in mind.

Cheers,
Greg

[rwh]

Er, the Coopers bottles are crown seal. Most of my longnecks are the coopers crownseal ones. I believe the reason they still ship their longies with the crown seal instead of the twist top is precisely to be friendly to homebrewers. The glass is thicker and stronger too. I'd absolutely recommend them. And seeing as you can buy them filled with beautiful sparkling ale, you can't lose (except I find it hard to pay that much for beer these days ).

[pixelboy]

Coopers Tallies are now a roll top type and quite heavy glass too. Blurb on the Coopers Club forum was that they'd been created with the homebrewer in mind.

They are indeed quality longies.. Id go for them or the HBS ones..

Shame Coopers cant make the stubbies roll top also..

[SpillsMostOfIt]

Coopers Tallies are now a roll top type and quite heavy glass too. Blurb on the Coopers Club forum was that they'd been created with the homebrewer in mind.

They are indeed quality longies.. Id go for them or the HBS ones..

Shame Coopers cant make the stubbies roll top also..

Yeah, there should be a law or something...

[pacman]

You could look at Grolsch 475ml (approx) swingtops. FULL ones $4 each at 1st Choice. Probably about $3.50 each by the carton of 20.

Advantages include far easier & quicker capping, together with extremely strong glass. I mostly use the similar Schwelmer 500ml bottles which , at least for the time being, are no longer available. Accidentally dropped one on to the concrete floor at the local UBrew4U after capping! All present ducked for cover. Like a grenade with the pin still in - nothing happened. Troops were most impressed. Not with my butter fingers, but with the quality of the glass.

Disadvantages are the shape (big footprint), and longevity of seals. Originally designed to be refilled 23 times, but the quality of the cap seals appears to have deteriorated in recent years. Turning the seals inside out after every use appears to be a solution.

Big bonus is that you get to drink half decent commercial brew before using for HB. Do the math to work out which is best for you. Some of the prices for EMPTIES seem a bit over the top.

[Trizza]

Thanks for the help guys,

As far as strength of the glass goes, how much stronger is the HBS 640ml bottle compared to the 750ml Coopers Bottle?
Would either of the bottles have a longer life compared to the other?

The idea is that I would like one standard size of Glass bottles in my hb collection; I don't want mismatched sets of brews.

I'm not going to bother with the CUB Bottles or the Grolsh...

Trizza.

[Wassa]

Looks like a no brainer to me.

Buy the Coopers, drink it and enjoy it and then keep the bottless.

Buy Carlton tallies and either drink them (and get sick) or throw the contents out.

I'll take a dozen Sparkling Ales any day. One of the 3 best beers in OZ. The others being Pale Ale and Tooheys Old.

[Tipsy]

I've a collection of both Coopers and the 640ml ones, the Coopers do look and feel a lot stronger.
That said, I have dropped a couple of 640ml ones on the tiled kitchen floor and they have bounced but not broken

So there you go, I haven't helped at all

[Boonie]

Thanks for the help guys,

As far as strength of the glass goes, how much stronger is the HBS 640ml bottle compared to the 750ml Coopers Bottle?
Would either of the bottles have a longer life compared to the other?

The idea is that I would like one standard size of Glass bottles in my hb collection; I don't want mismatched sets of brews.

Trizza.

I'd go the Coopers. I don't know if they are stronger or not, but I do not think one would outlast the other, as they are both fairly thick glass.

Bonus would be that they are 750ml. Less capping and 2 Full beers .

I have alot of Coopers, Old Crown Seals, CUB, and Tooheys bottles. I have dropped many Crown seal and Coopers and they bounce. Tooheys and CUB chip and break extremely easily.

Cheers

Boonie

[SUBREW]

Hooray, this is the first time, in a long time, I can feel good about Home Brewing in New Zealand, where we have a real limited range of ingredients and equipment compared to AUS...

...but on the plus side we have the marvelous 750ml "swappa" crate bottles readily available in all bottle stores! 12 X 750ml resusable, strong bottles in a wooden crate! brilliant

Better still our local waste transfer station has them by the crate for $5 for 12 woo-hoo! I have 24 doz in my stock .

Postage to AUS might be a problem, sorry guys!

Cheers

SUBREW

[red dog]

I'm using 330ml carlsberg stubbies at the moment. I found them to reseal really well. I still need to get hold of some glass tallies though as well for back up. I ran out of bottles on Satuday and i had to use 1.25ml PET bottles so will see how they go, but I reckon glass is the way to go ater trying a few of a mate brews a few weeks ago.