Which bottles can I use?

[Rich_S]

Planning on bottling tomorrow.

Soaking my empties in Oxyclean/Water right now.

I noticed the tops of the bottles all look different. I have a bunch of Sam Adams, Strongbow, Woodchuck, Samuel Smith's (different sizes), Newcastle, Lancaster, etc.

Is my capper going to work on all of them? I have the butterfly from Northern and bought the second sized bell with it.

 

[Yooper]

Sam Adams bottles work great. I'm not so sure about the European bottles.

 

[ajf]

Strongbow, Woodchuck, and Samuel Smith's also work.
Never tried Newcastle or Lancaster.

-a.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Newcastle will also work, although since they are clear you will want to make sure you keep those bottles out of the light while they are conditioning. All the UK bottles I've come across are standard bottle mouths.

The 29mm bell will work for German and Belgian 12 oz/ 11.9 oz bottles that have the smaller opening. I do use the regular bell on those bottles. It takes a little more pressure to get the cap sealed but I've never had one leak.

 

[Rich_S]

Ok, cool. I saw another thread where someone was saying they found it impossible to cap Stella Artois bottles, and I have a few of those in the mix too.

 

[ChshreCat]

It really varies. I have a wing capper and have terrible times with New Belgium bottles breaking and also have problems with Orval and Hoegaarden bottles. Then other folks on here with similar cappers have no problems with them and some of them use New Belgium bottles as their favorites. It'll just take time and experience for you to find what works for you. Prep extra bottles in case you have troubles with some.

 

[devilishprune]

There's something I really like about the New Belgium bottles; I use a lot of those.

All of those should should work fine. I've used woodchuck and New Castle with no issues.

 

[ChshreCat]

The thing to avoid with a wing capper is twist-off bottles.

 

[rico567]

I have never found a bottle with a pry-off mouth that my cappers wouldn't handle.

I use a bench capper, and have found that standardizing on the regular brown 12 oz. 9" tall longneck makes things go smoothly. I discard New Belgium, Sierra Nevada and any others that may have a standard bottle mouth, but are of nonstandard height. After three years of homebrewing, I have a stock of 500+ bottles and don't need to mess with anything that's nonstandard. I occasionally bottle in bombers, flip-tops, etc., but I set them aside and use in their own batch.

 

[beersydoesit]

Yeah, I have found some european bottles hard to use, but I use new belgium all the time.
I haven't found any that I can't make work, some just seem fussier than I care to work with.