Hey folks, My good buddy has aquired me a massive hoard of used bottles. They are all pop tops and a mix of imports,domestics,crafts. My question is mostly directed towards the imports. I realize the standard caps are 26mm. Has anyone had issues with import bottles? For example a few Czech Pils match up to a regular bottle, however that small lip appears to be a little smaller. In the past I have mostly bottled beer I have drank or bottles from friends U.S only. I keg a bit, however I am working on my summer mobile stash, fishing,camping,cookouts,etc. Sure would hate to bottle a few cases using import bottles and find out they don't seal etc. Have a great a weekend! Ed
Many years ago I used an import bottle (don't recall which one) that did not seal properly, so I haven't used another import since then. It could have been the bottle, or the bottle-capper (me) that was at issue, but I've tended to not drink import beers anyway and drink a lot of American beers, thus none of these relatively-few import empties are kept for re-use.
I regularly drink/re-use Belgian and German bottles and nary a problem has arisen. To be sure, bottle some tonic water and let it sit for a month . . . see if it holds up.
That was my concern on the imports. The mm appears the same ,however the actual lips the cap crimps to appears different. I am just going to use the domestics. They were free. If I a batch takes a dump I am out cash and likely a mess in the house.
Thanks for the heads up. Exactly, I didn't want to blow money on a bad batch from bottles. Appreciate the info.
I have used pretty much every shape of bottle out there. There are very few European bottles that cap so poorly that I had to give them up. Most of the German and Belgian bottles will seal just fine although the crimping doesn't wrap around the lip as nicely as it does on domestic bottles. They are not the easiest to cap with a wing capper but a bench capper works fine. My experience is that when I find a bottle that won't seal it is obvious from the way it fails to sit right on the bottle. I do use oxygen barrier caps for all my beers so the seal in the cap is thicker and that may aid getting a good seal on those type of bottles.
I will try a few of the imports. I have 2 cases of Pils Urquell. I may try them out and put them in the garage incase of an incident. I have bottled enough I believe when I put the cap on I should probably tell yeah or neah. Thanks!
You shouldn't have any problems with exploding bottles due to the bottle mouth size. If the cap doesn't fit well then the bottles are just not going to carbonate. I guess they could leak if they aren't stored upright...
I didn't really have a fear of bottle bombs. Just the wife!! She does not bother me with my hobby and I don't want to start now.
I recently went out drinking with some buddies at an import bar and saved all the bottles mostly cause I loved the shapes and sizes. I brewed two different batches and all the imports were used as well as domestic bottles and I've yet to have any issues. it's been several months now and every time I pop one it's perfect
I used a wide variety at first, but now I have so many standard long necks that different ones mostly collect dust. But I didn't really have any problems with imported bottles, unless it was the occasional different-sized cap (larger).
