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Bottle breaks during capping
We're on our second batch of home brew and we were capping. We love Anchor Steam bottles, so many of the bottles were of this kind. All of a sudden we try to cap one and the top breaks off! Dang. That stinks. Maybe it's a fluke. Nope. A few bottles later and another Anchor Steam breaks. Do you think this is a general problem with reusing bottles or is there a problem with using Anchor Steam bottles?
how many times have you reused these bottles? I've never had one break on me, but then again so far I havent reused any a lot of times, and haven't used any anchor steam bottles. I can't imagine they would be any thinner/weaker than other bottles though.
I have heard if you use your dishwasher to clean bottles they can get weakened, but I havent tried that either.
Are you using a wing capper? I hear that sometimes the metal clamps can be too tight and can break the bottle necks. I believe some of them may be adjustable.
I use a wing capper. have for years. I never had a bottle break, until last week. One bottle right below the cap. I reuse bottles a lot so I don't know if the bottle just got weak or what. Only had it happen once in years so there's no pattern to see. Never used ancor steam bottles either. Some bottles are probably thicker than others. But I don't look for specific ones. There is one bottle I avoid using as it doesn't cap as well as the others and that is Bass bottles. I've weeded them out of my bottle supply.
DC
I like what firepit is saying.
Some styles of cappers just don't like certain bottles. Its as plain as that.
Just remember too, that you don't really need to push down on the capper all that hard. It takes very little energy on your part to get a proper crimp on that cap to seal it. Generally the leverage created by the handles of the capper with just a sufficient push to get them to "fold" would be fine.
So don't be a he-man thinking more force is better.
I have bottled about a 12 pack or so with Anchor bottles and did not have a problem. The capper may be scoring the glass?
A buddy of mine ended up in the hospital with 9 stitches in his hand while capping on my old home made capper. I think he had the bottle at an angle and threw his weight into it. I had capped thousands of bottles with it and never had a problem. Needless to say I still got a new capper that caps like soft butter.
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