I thought about putting this in drunken ramblings, it might actually make more sense there...
DISCLAIMER: Don't do this at home, in the garage or anywhere else, it doesn't work well, if at all, and it may injure you, your beer, your family, or your reputation. It may also hurt the economy, shut down the government, and lead to the collapse of society and the onset of the zombie apocalypse. Just buy a capper, they're cheap and much easier, at least i assume they are, i've never used one.
...but what if you don't have a capper, and want to cap a few bottles? What if your capper broke while bottling, and you only have a few left to do? Well, you may try what I did, but you probably shouldn't...
I keg all of my beer, when i started homebrewing i already had a kegerator so it just seemed to make good sense to keg my homebrew. But of course, I wanted to take some beer with me or to give to friends and family, so i have some bottles of various sizes that have grolsch style swing caps. I just ask the friends and family to return the bottles, no problem. I also left a nice 750ml swing top bottle behind a port-a-potty during a college football game since i couldn't take it in. I was happy that it was still there in the state i left it in after the game! So, sometimes using them isn't ideal, and it would be nice to get some homebrew in a bottle that i won't care about too much if I don't get back.
So, today, I thought to myself: "Self, you have some empty bottles from commercial beer, some bottle caps from extract kits, and a bunch of tools. You should be able to get a cap on a beer." A quick search of HBT and elsewhere came up with almost nothing on this topic, so it was time to experiment:
That's a bottle with some water in it, a cap and some pliers. Seemed like it might work but it didn't. The pliers could bend the top down enough to just barely get it to catch the top lip of the bottle, but it certainly did not seal and had no chance of staying on. Oh well, next attempt:
Grabbed a few sockets that were about the right size, 1-1/8", 1-1/16", and 1". Starting with the same cap from the last experiment, I put the cap on the bottle, the socket on the cap, held it all steady and tapped. Since you're not trying this at home you don't have to worry about wearing gloves or anything to protect your hands in case a bottle breaks - that only happens to other people.
The 1-1/8" socket would put the cap on the bottle, but it really wasn't sealed, holding the bottle upside down and shaking, water came out. The 1" socket was too small, there was no chance it would work. The 1-1/16" socket seemed to be the best size. Of course, once the cap was on, the socket was stuck on the bottle and it took some effort to pull it off. The cap still leaked. So I looked around for some other tools:
The shank wrench was about the right size, but just didn't do anything. So i decided that maybe that cap was a little too beat up from my experimentation and i needed to start again with a new one.
The 1-1/16" socket didn't seem to get very far on a cap that wasn't already started with the pliers, so i used the 1-1/8" socket to get it started, then the 1-1/16" to get it farther. Again, the sockets took some effort to pull off of the bottle after tapping them on, but:
Bam! it was on the bottle and had at least enough of a seal that no water came out when I turned it upside down and shook it. If you look closely, it's still not crimped down as much as it should be. I'm guessing that it probably wouldn't keep a good seal with co2 pressure inside the bottle. I tried getting it crimped better with the channel lock and needle nose pliers, but it seems like the uneven pressure from pliers rules out any chance of a good seal. I considered using a screwdriver to crimp a little more, but that would be even more uneven than the pliers and is much more likely to end with me stabbing myself in the hand with a screwdriver. (Not that such things have ever happened to me before...)
So, why would I post this? I don't know. It's possible that someone, sometime will be almost done with bottling a batch of beer and break their capper, then use this method to cap the last few temporarily until they can get a replacement capper. Seems unlikely, and I wouldn't recommend it anyway since you may just end up with a few poorly sealed, uncarbed beers. More likely, others like me will think that this is possible, and like me search the forums for some ideas. Let this be a warning to these people:
It won't work, and zombies might eat your brains.
I'm just going to buy a capper. They're not that expensive and it will work much more reliably than the above method. Maybe my experimentation and explanation above will save someone else some experimentation time that would be better spend enjoying some homebrew. Of course, if someone has a method of capping without a capper, I'd love to hear it, someday after i buy a capper, it could break and I may want to know...
DISCLAIMER: Don't do this at home, in the garage or anywhere else, it doesn't work well, if at all, and it may injure you, your beer, your family, or your reputation. It may also hurt the economy, shut down the government, and lead to the collapse of society and the onset of the zombie apocalypse. Just buy a capper, they're cheap and much easier, at least i assume they are, i've never used one.
...but what if you don't have a capper, and want to cap a few bottles? What if your capper broke while bottling, and you only have a few left to do? Well, you may try what I did, but you probably shouldn't...
I keg all of my beer, when i started homebrewing i already had a kegerator so it just seemed to make good sense to keg my homebrew. But of course, I wanted to take some beer with me or to give to friends and family, so i have some bottles of various sizes that have grolsch style swing caps. I just ask the friends and family to return the bottles, no problem. I also left a nice 750ml swing top bottle behind a port-a-potty during a college football game since i couldn't take it in. I was happy that it was still there in the state i left it in after the game! So, sometimes using them isn't ideal, and it would be nice to get some homebrew in a bottle that i won't care about too much if I don't get back.
So, today, I thought to myself: "Self, you have some empty bottles from commercial beer, some bottle caps from extract kits, and a bunch of tools. You should be able to get a cap on a beer." A quick search of HBT and elsewhere came up with almost nothing on this topic, so it was time to experiment:
That's a bottle with some water in it, a cap and some pliers. Seemed like it might work but it didn't. The pliers could bend the top down enough to just barely get it to catch the top lip of the bottle, but it certainly did not seal and had no chance of staying on. Oh well, next attempt:
Grabbed a few sockets that were about the right size, 1-1/8", 1-1/16", and 1". Starting with the same cap from the last experiment, I put the cap on the bottle, the socket on the cap, held it all steady and tapped. Since you're not trying this at home you don't have to worry about wearing gloves or anything to protect your hands in case a bottle breaks - that only happens to other people.
The 1-1/8" socket would put the cap on the bottle, but it really wasn't sealed, holding the bottle upside down and shaking, water came out. The 1" socket was too small, there was no chance it would work. The 1-1/16" socket seemed to be the best size. Of course, once the cap was on, the socket was stuck on the bottle and it took some effort to pull it off. The cap still leaked. So I looked around for some other tools:
The shank wrench was about the right size, but just didn't do anything. So i decided that maybe that cap was a little too beat up from my experimentation and i needed to start again with a new one.
The 1-1/16" socket didn't seem to get very far on a cap that wasn't already started with the pliers, so i used the 1-1/8" socket to get it started, then the 1-1/16" to get it farther. Again, the sockets took some effort to pull off of the bottle after tapping them on, but:
Bam! it was on the bottle and had at least enough of a seal that no water came out when I turned it upside down and shook it. If you look closely, it's still not crimped down as much as it should be. I'm guessing that it probably wouldn't keep a good seal with co2 pressure inside the bottle. I tried getting it crimped better with the channel lock and needle nose pliers, but it seems like the uneven pressure from pliers rules out any chance of a good seal. I considered using a screwdriver to crimp a little more, but that would be even more uneven than the pliers and is much more likely to end with me stabbing myself in the hand with a screwdriver. (Not that such things have ever happened to me before...)
So, why would I post this? I don't know. It's possible that someone, sometime will be almost done with bottling a batch of beer and break their capper, then use this method to cap the last few temporarily until they can get a replacement capper. Seems unlikely, and I wouldn't recommend it anyway since you may just end up with a few poorly sealed, uncarbed beers. More likely, others like me will think that this is possible, and like me search the forums for some ideas. Let this be a warning to these people:
It won't work, and zombies might eat your brains.
I'm just going to buy a capper. They're not that expensive and it will work much more reliably than the above method. Maybe my experimentation and explanation above will save someone else some experimentation time that would be better spend enjoying some homebrew. Of course, if someone has a method of capping without a capper, I'd love to hear it, someday after i buy a capper, it could break and I may want to know...
