Commercial UK crown cap bottle recommendations

[BasementArtie]

I am getting bored of cleaning and replacing gaskets, cleaning the cages and some not being tight despite being adjusted on my flip top bottles (not my Grolsch ones - they are great).

I am looking for a commercial brown 500ml beer bottle which weighs around 350g and 335g as minimum and also the label comes off easily. The benefit of doing this I also get to drink more beer .

Any recommendations? I've seen Banks Bitter is 89p at the moment maybe I should buy one and weigh it. 3.8% would mean I can drink a few a night and buy a dozen a week during the weekly food shop. Any thoughts?

 

[Clint]

I bought beers I've never tried...anything and everything. Repeat buys of the ones I like. The only labels worth bothering with I find are paper..those plastic or metallic type are a pig to remove...well the glue behind then is,not worth the effort! Raid your neighbours recycling bin. Buy a bench capper as some bottles don't like the hand cappers. FWIW I've never had one break or explode and I've used them hundreds of times. Why the weight preference?

 

[BasementArtie]

I bought beers I've never tried...anything and everything. Repeat buys of the ones I like. The only labels worth bothering with I find are paper..those plastic or metallic type are a pig to remove...well the glue behind then is,not worth the effort! Raid your neighbours recycling bin. Buy a bench capper as some bottles don't like the hand cappers. FWIW I've never had one break or explode and I've used them hundreds of times. Why the weight preference?

I have a calculation I do for maximum Vol.Co2 which accounts for 25% reduction in strength for bottles not intended for reuse (probably very overboard but I'd prefer to know what the theoretical "safe" limit of a bottle is before I use it).

In this case a bottle of 350g for a 500ml bottle would have a safe limit of 2.625 vol.co². Whereas a 500ml bottle of 335g would have a limit of 2.51 vol.co².

Just me being anal.

 

[H0PM0NSTER]

I often find myself subconsciously selecting beers where i know the labels can easily be removed.

Badger Ales in Dorset have good ol' fashioned paper labels that will soak off in hot water over night. Hopping Hare and Tropical Ferret are both nice.

 

[Yellow Car]

Banks bottles are 330g with welded-on labels, so probably not what you're after. That said, I've reused them without problems.

 

[moto748]

Labels come off the clear Banks bottles very easily, but you said you wanted brown bottles. Most of my brown bottles are Hobgoblin.

 

[Dilettante Brewing]

Labels come off TT Landlord very easily and it’s a fab beer!

 

[An Ankoù]

I use ordinary 500 ml bottles weighing less than 300g. I've never had one explode. Why do you want such high carbonation? Won't they gush when you open them?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

I bought beers I've never tried...anything and everything. Repeat buys of the ones I like. The only labels worth bothering with I find are paper..those plastic or metallic type are a pig to remove...well the glue behind then is,not worth the effort!

The plastic and metallic labels are quite good, because they're strong enough to pull off in one go and don't leave much glue behind on the bottle. It's quicker if there's only one big wrap-round label rather than two separate ones as the fiddly bit is just getting the initial "key" on the label, so one big label is quicker than two small ones.

Glue is easy, you just need a stainless steel scourer - not Brillo pads, but something like this which you can get from any supermarket, Wilko etc. Destroys glue in seconds but doesn't hurt the glass.

 

[Clint]

I've made probably a couple of thousand bottles of beer ranging from almost flat mild and Bitters to frothy,fizzy Wheats and lagers...all randomly bottled in whatever I have empty...not one problem.

 

[Leon103]

When I need a few bottles I go to my local pub and take a few empty cider bottles, the Swedish brands. Never break and labels come off easy.

 

[rocketman_k]

Labels come off the clear Banks bottles very easily, but you said you wanted brown bottles. Most of my brown bottles are Hobgoblin.

I avoid Hobgoblin bottles as they don’t seem to be compatible with the lever type hand capper.....in fact I broke mine trying to use them.

 

[webbber]

Pedigree is 99p at Morrisons at the moment. Not sure if it meets your spec but I like it. i have had a couple of bottles explode and have only made about 10 batches in total. It was probably due to overenthusiastic carbing and mishandling though!

 

[KentishMan]

I know this isn’t exactly what you’re asking.
But I just bought a few boxes of empty bottles from Ballihoo
They weren’t that expensive, good quality for reusing…and no labels to remove

I bought from them because they also do a large range of different coloured bottle caps, and gummed paper for new labels, which are very easily removed.

Might be worth considering.

 

[BasementArtie]

I know this isn’t exactly what you’re asking.
But I just bought a few boxes of empty bottles from Ballihoo
They weren’t that expensive, good quality for reusing…and no labels to remove

I bought from them because they also do a large range of different coloured bottle caps, and gummed paper for new labels, which are very easily removed.

Might be worth considering.

This may be possibility, however I won't get the excuse of drinking extra beer.

Do you know the weight of the bottles (uncapped) and are the weights consistent?

Thanks

 

[KentishMan]

Do you know the weight of the bottles (uncapped) and are the weights consistent?

Just weighed a few of my empties, all 500ml.
All 289g so, yeah very consistent.

But you’re right, shame they don’t come pre filled!

 

[nickjdavis]

I often find myself subconsciously selecting beers where i know the labels can easily be removed.

Badger Ales in Dorset have good ol' fashioned paper labels that will soak off in hot water over night. Hopping Hare and Tropical Ferret are both nice.

I've never been able to cap a Badger Beer bottle...even with my bench capper....I always drink contents and the bottles go to recycling!!!

 

[BasementArtie]

Just weighed a few of my empties, all 500ml.
All 289g so, yeah very consistent.

But you’re right, shame they don’t come pre filled!

That is odd. Are these the ones you got? Brown Glass Beer Bottles x 24 With Crown Caps or the 12 pack?

I emailed them and they said they weighed 330g.

 

[Clint]

I avoid Hobgoblin bottles as they don’t seem to be compatible with the lever type hand capper.....in fact I broke mine trying to use them.

Correct. Get a bench capper.

 

[Siscokid85]

plastic and metallic labels are quite good, because they're strong enough to pull off in one go and don't leave much glue behind on the bottle. It's quicker if there's only one big wrap-round label rather than two separate ones as the fiddly bit is just getting the initial "key" on the label, so one big label is quicker than two small ones.

Glue is easy, you just need a stainless steel scourer - not Brillo pads, but something like this which you can get from any supermarket, Wilko etc

+1 for the springy wire things, I leave the bottles to soak in hot washing up water for a 20 mins or so, then use this / the back of a bread knife to remove the paper type labels, the plastic type labels take some pulling off with wet hands but come off whole, the glue can be a pain though, the springy thing works on that too.

I have mostly been collecting Adnams bottles, I would say they are middle of the road for how hard they are to remove. Hobgoblin / wychwood pretty much the same. I just buy 3 or 4 of what I fancy and remove, if one is well hard then I just ditch it in the recycling. As I only seem to do 3 or 4 the morning after a few bottles the night before it is never too laborious.

With regards to hand cappers, never had much issue although I stay away from cider bottles i've had a few where it doesn't seal well. I might upgrade to a bench capper in future.

I have always used priming tablets or the 2.5g tate and lyle catering sticks in all the different 500ml bottles and I have never had a bottle bomb..... until last week, however that was a full batch of belgian dubbel and I tried to go for 3+ vols of co2, so I tried batch priming for the first time in a bottling bucket, I am going to blame the batch priming being uneven and / or the higher carbonation for the style being too much for english ale bottles. In future irrespective of the style I think I will shoot for 2-2.5 vols, I wont bother with batch priming either, just don't think its worth the risk of either explosions or 40 gushers of beer you don't get to drink as its all over the draining board in foam! Too much hard work / time goes in to it to get to that point I think.

Tip - maybe obvious but, luckily I put all my bottles in cardboard boxes I have kept from mail order beer places (beer52 / honestbrew / beers of europe etc) so the bottle bomb wasn't dangerous it just caused a slight mess in the box and on the garage floor (good job it wasn't in the airing cupboard or I'd have been for it!)