by pacman » Sunday Oct 22, 2006 9:59 pm
Put off bottle cappers many years ago following a couple of unfortunate experiences. At that time I resorted to recapping twist tops with their original caps. Sanitized of course. No problems, and maybe one failure in about 10 brews!
Bit older, and supposedly a bit wiser, on my second HB experience.
Initially used same approach with twist top stubbies as before, but only as a stop gap method until I acquired a mixture of Grolsch 473ml & Schwelmer 500ml swingtops. Have concentrated on slowly acquiring Schwelmer bottles, as they are cheaper (by about 50c per bottle), and hold 27ml more than Grolsch - not important until you extrapolate that over a year of bottling (and drinking)!
There are upsides and downsides, as with most things in life.
UPSIDES: Fill bottle and press swingtop into place - capping takes a couple of seconds max. Surely there cannot be an easier way of bottling? Maybe not as easy as kegging, but kegging is not appropriate for everyone (& certainly not for me!).
The bottles are very strong, and anecdotal evidence suggests you will have to THROW one for it to break!
DOWNSIDES: Takes time to acquire bottles. You will probably have to buy, and drink (curses!) all of them yourself. Neither beer is brilliant, and neither beer is cheap.
Storeage can be difficult unless you buy Grolsch by the carton (20 bottles).
Schwelmer come in 4 packs, & these packs are pretty useless for HBrs. Best I have found is Seaview Brut cartons, which hold 19 Schwelmers. Weird, innit? But 20 will bugger the carton, whilst 3 rows of 5 & 1 row of 4 fits very snug.
These bottles are very heavy, especially when filled. 19 Schwelmers is about same weight as 12 X 750ml sparkling wine.
CONCLUSION: Has been worth the effort!
Cheers,
Pacman