After 130 batches of 48 +- bottles in 5 yrs of homebrewing, my red plastic wing capper is starting to fail. The bell gets stuck on the bottle sometimes - usually my clear Newcastle brown ale bottles that I use to monitor the conditioning (as they have a short lip) and there have been a few broken bottle necks on the regular bottles. I also have 2 batches ready to bottle. I go pretty well and can bottle rapidly with the wing capper so I don't think I want to get a bench capper - I have no place to bolt it down in the kitchen near the dishwasher that holds the clean bottles before filling them all. So, are all the red plastic cappers the same? There is a metal one on Amazon. Anyone use this one instead of the plastic one?
I can't answer your question about the Amazon item, but before you buy a new capper let me ask if you checked to see if the bell has come loose? Mine did once and caused some issues that cleared up as soon as I screwed it back to being tight. Maybe that will work the same for you.
I got a Grifo bench-capper a few years back. My wing-style hasn't been used again and I only keep it in case the Grifo fails, which I don't expect. What I like about the Grifo is 1) it will cap different height bottles without needing to adjust, and 2) the spoke-style handle. They're tough to find stateside now. It was on sale at Williams Brewing when I got it, and they no longer sell it (maybe that's why it was on sale ?!?) My model Grifo is in stock at this place in the UK. I didn't check on whether they ship to the US.
Just read this part and should have mentioned: My bottling bucket is placed on the counter above the dishwasher. Bottles are filled using the open dishwasher door as a staging area for bottles that are ready to be filled. My bench capper is not bolted down. It sits on the counter to the left of the bucket on a (nearly) skid-proof mat, which needs to be slightly repositioned about every 12 or so bottles. Thought about bolting it to a piece of 2x6, but it's not really needed.
I began homebrewing in about 1971 with a wing style capper. Not a good solution. Cracked glass, poor sealing. I then retrieved my grandfather's prohibition-era cast iron/machined gear bench capper that I had used for root beer in the 60s and never again had problems. For shorter bottles, I did have to use a block of wood on the base to raise the bottle crown opening to the range of the gearing. My home brews that were bottled in the 80s, and opened this year, retained fine carbonation and were otherwise in good condition.
I have 2 wing cappers for this reason – if one ends up breaking mid bottling sesh, I'll at least have another to finish bottling the batch. But, like @PapaGoose03 mentioned, the one time I thought I broke mine, it was just the bell coming loose and I was able to screw it back on. I also have a very old, rusty bench style press that my dad gave me from an antique shop. I haven't tried it out on any bottles but the mechanism still works so I don't see why it wouldn't!
@PapaGoose03 - you are correct about the bell. It comes off every bottling session now and I twist it back in. Since it is metal to plastic, I worry that I will eventually wear out the plastic threads and render it unusable. So, I think that I will need to get a back-up unit just in case. Thanks for all the info. I did see a Grifo on Amazon for $459. I will pass.
