2 questions about bottles

[TheMumbler]

Hi, new to home brewing and my first post so please forgive my general ignorance and any breaches of etiquette, posting in the wrong area etc. I have had a quick search of the forums and can't see any threads answering these questions but there were quite a lot so I could have missed them...

I am planning to have a go at home brewing as a friend has kindly offered to lend me a bit of kit while he is away for a month or two and I was thinking of bottling some of the beer and I was wondering whether:

1) Are changes in the manufacturing process (see link below) likely to mean that some newer bottles are less suitable than their older counterparts. I have some brakspear bitter bottles bought at around the same time as some adnams and black sheep. The adnams bottles are advertised as being more environmentally friendly due to lower weight and the black sheep bottle is about the same empty weight (~300g) while the brakspear bottles are about 10% heavier (~330g).
http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/materials ... eer_2.html

2) I notice that the bottles have codes around the base and was wondering whether these gave any information about their strength

Many thanks for all the useful information here.

cheers

[OldSpeckledBadger]

They're strong enough to hold commercially carbonated beer so they'll be fine for home-brew.

[FlourPower]

They should show how many mm thick the glass is. Usually about 42mm

[TheMumbler]

Thanks for the answers. I'm really looking forward to having a go at this

[simple one]

They should show how many mm thick the glass is. Usually about 42mm

Not my bottles!

[wmfd]

They should show how many mm thick the glass is. Usually about 42mm

42mm, that's over an inch thick - is there a decimal point in there, or are you brewing something truly powerful?

Seriously, I use a variety of different secondhand bottles, never had a problem with their strength - if they meet the tolerances for commercial brewing then they should cope with my minimal demands.

David

[TheMumbler]

Thinking about it I'd guess that the measurement given in mm on the bottle is probably the bottle base diameter or the diameter at widest point. The other string might tell you something about pressure capacity or glass thickness...

e.g the Adnams East Green Bottle I have here has what looks like a circle with a T attached by the base to its right followed by E50 B3 BB254

Good points made about being used commercially and so on, I don't suppose it really matters if people are using the bottles without problems. Probably just being overcautious on my part, I just have visions of me clearing up half my brew with a mop while my GF screams blue murder at me . I may bottle a bit of my first run and put them out of the way to see if any of the varieties I have go bang...

[coatesg]

All good bottles to use - and I think it's correct the 42mm refers to the diameter EDIT: Radius! of the bottle rather than the thickness! The Brakspear and Black Sheep ones are also easy to get the labels off (which is an immediate reason for me to reject and recycle an empty if the label is a faff)

[FlourPower]

They should show how many mm thick the glass is. Usually about 42mm

Yeah. Ahem. I got home and looked at a bottle and thought ahh.

Vernier Calipers away!