Twin-lever cappers and different bottle types.

I'll be bottling my beer in the next few days and since this is my first home brew, I've been busy collecting bottles over the last month or so and I've also got myself a twin-lever crown top capper, as pictured below:



Now, being new to this, I didn't appreciate the various bottle neck designs and how some work better than others with this type of capper. The upshot being that 16 out of the 45 bottles I collected, de-labelled and washed have ended up being chucked in the recycling and I've had to replace them with more suitable bottles which - yup, you've guessed it - I've had to collect, de-label and wash.

To prevent any other innocent, unsuspecting newbies (like me) making the same mistake, I thought it would be a good idea to show some of the different bottle neck designs, and point out which ones work well, which ones are a bit dodgy and which ones don't work with my capper (other cappers results may be different, see below).

I'll kick things off with my experiences with my capper, but it would be helpful if people with other types of twin-lever capper (Young's, Emily etc) also contribute with their results as it's likely that due to slight design differences, some will perform better/worse with some types of bottle.

So, here are the three different types of bottle neck I had in my bottle collection:


Bottle type 1:



Bottle type 2:



Bottle type 3 (Hobgoblin!):



And here are my results (if other contributors can use this as a template for posting their results then it will make the thread easier to read):


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Type of capper: Metal "High Quality" twin-lever capper (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Crown-Cap...pt=UK_Home_Garden_Food_SM&hash=item5b05a28cc8.)

Bottle type 1: OK. Good seal, very straightforward.

Bottle type 2: Dodgy. Not a good seal (cap can be turned by hand). I will not use these bottles with this capper. Edit: It works perfectly if 3 pennies are stacked on top of the crown cap before capping the bottle.

Bottle type 3: OK. Good seal but a little more care has to be taken and the dent made in the cap is deeper.


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weird our capper does all bottles except the hobgoblin. Good post though informative

Mark1964 said:

weird our capper does all bottles except the hobgoblin. Good post though informative

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Thanks Mark. What kind of capper do you have? (If you could use the template, that would be great, cheers.)

it was one off ebay the one we had before had plates that you could pull out and turn round but it broke. Hence the new one

The Wychwood bottles have a deeper bottle crown, hence why nobody can cap the buggers. As I found out to my cost a few years ago...

I have the same capper as you, brewski.

Dave

CreweBrewer said:

The Wychwood bottles have a deeper bottle crown, hence why nobody can cap the buggers. As I found out to my cost a few years ago...

I have the same capper as you, brewski.

Dave

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I know some cappers can't cap Wychwood bottles but mine seems to manage just fine. That's one of the reasons I chose this capper - check out this review where he demonstrates it capping a Wychwood bottle.

http://youtu.be/2uTptJgka1g

Edit: hmm, looks like it's not that video but I've definitely seen it somewhere! Anyway, I've tried it myself since my capper arrived and it seemed fine.

I'll have to give it another bash. I might not be holding my mouth right...

Brewski said:

I know some cappers can't cap Wychwood bottles but mine seems to manage just fine. That's one of the reasons I chose this capper - check out this review where he demonstrates it capping a Wychwood bottle.

http://youtu.be/2uTptJgka1g

Edit: hmm, looks like it's not that video but I've definitely seen it somewhere! Anyway, I've tried it myself since my capper arrived and it seemed fine.

Click to expand...

yep. same probs. got the big square looking red capper from a mate. looks a bit tranformer like.with a pin of a magnet on it.some go some don't. haven't sussed which cos i've de labelled.what i have noticed is the ones i've opened that haven't had a a dent in the cap have been flat, even thou they seemed air tight. i.e turning them upside and no leaks.the agro of getting it/ is it just me/ the angle right etc, i'm hedging towards a bench capper

Well, this is going well. :lol:

fwiw using good ol silicon baking sheet tightly wrapped round the neck of a dodgy bottle a few times can allow the cappers jaws to grip the silicone and bottle neck low enough to squeeze on the cap.. its a pita tho if doing more than once or twice in a batch.. go swingtop

Mine is the big red boxy plastic capper...

Mines a knock on type that you belt with the hammer. Had no breakages yet or flat beers, works with all bottles so far. Cheap as chips to buy and i get some odd kind of satisfaction from using it. It does take quite a while to cap all my bottles but im still new to this game only got 4 brews under my belt so far.
The biggest draw back is that i usualy bottle on a sunday night when ive got the kids to bed and end up belting the caps on between about 10 and 11 oclock in the kitchen of my terraced house. No complaints from the neighbours or wife yet but think i might purchase a lever capper and keep my trusty knock on for the stubborn bottles.

Aspalls cider bottles are no good, the ridge that the capper grips on to chips and splinters off!

i have the same capper as yours plus a wilkos (youngs) capper £7.50 when sale is on, and have not failed to cap any bottles between the two.......

only bottles I have had problems with so far are Shephard neame bottles ( ie spitfire)- I think they are more like a 29mm top as to the usual 26mm

I meant to update this thread after my bottling day but it slipped my mind.

Anyway, the capper was great and capped a mixture of about 60 500ml & 330ml bottles without wasting a single cap. The vast majority were type 1 (pictured in the first post) and they really were a doddle. I binned all my type 2 bottles because I wasn't happy with the seal but there were a few type 3's (Wychwood Hobgoblin), and whilst the capper did them all, I did have to go a bit steadier with them and the dent made in the cap by the capper was more pronounced that with the other bottles, due to the larger collar.

I'll update the first post to reflect this. :thumb:

I think I've just figured out a way of getting a good seal with my capper and type 2 bottles: by stacking a few pennies on top of the crown cap before going in with the capper.

The appliance of science! :geek: :lol:

I'll raid the recycling bin later and have a fiddle.

Edit: Yup, it works. :)

good post. I took delivery today, of the type of capper you have after my wilko one started getting fussy on capping even type 1 bottles. I'll try the penny trick on Fullers bottles. Thing is, I had quite a few de labelled type 2's which I ditched a couple of weeks ago because my Wilko capper (now known to have worn in some way) wouldn't cap them. Will need to go dumpster diving again.

I would advise against using that metal capper with the Wychwood bottles. Over time I seams to 'stretch' something in the capper. I've dome probably done wychwood 20-30 bottles and hundreds of others. I did 3 Wychwood in a row on my last brew and felt like I was forcing it on. It got jammed on the 3rd and all subsequent bottles will no longer cap.

that's interesting...my Wilko capper gave up after bottling about 20 type 2's (McEwans Champion No1 Ale) which it 'just managed', but didn't really like. Afterwards when I started having trouble, it did feel different, as if it had somehow been 'stretched'. With the new capper I think I'll play safe and stick to type 1 bottles for the time being based on your experiences.

i'm gonna chuck my "type 2" bottles from now on. My wilkos capper seems to seal them OK, after a couple of tries, but it does not "feel" right. I can't turn them or anything, but does not have the satisfying "clunk" i get from type 1.