Query on bottling... what bottles

[frederick]

Hi all... I have a fairly large number of STELLA lager bottles. Has anyone in the forum ever used these for bottling ?
The reason for this question is that a friend of mine has advised me that these bottles are rather thin and hinted that they are unsuitable for home bottling.
Any advice please..... Frederick

[eddnix]

Your friend is correct, thin lager bottles cannot withstand priming pressure and are apt to explode.

It's preferable to use the thick brown bottles you find on the 'real ale' shelves in the supermarket, Grolsch bottles are good too. Don't use clear glass bottles as these allow light to strike your beer which can lead to unpleasant/unwanted flavours.

Hope that helps.

[drbell]

Without wanting to tempt fate, is the bottling exploding thing a real danger? I have been testing out a few lager bottles (Einbach) and so far have had no problems at all. None of my brews so far have been excessively fizzy and there doesn't seem to have been huge pressures building up when I took the caps off. I stored the thin bottles (just 5ish out of 40) for my first 2 brews in a black bin just in case, but with my latest brew they have gone in the brewery with the thicker bottles.

Is this a case of needing thicker bottles for when you get the amounts of priming sugar wrong, or is it a genuine possibility with all brews.

[GTOrichie]

I haven't had any pop on me but I always use brow ale bottles if I'm using glass, my friends on the other hand have used whatever lager bottles they could find and have woke up to brown kitchens and airing cupboards not to mention Very upset wives/mothers.

[Madbrewer]

I have been testing out a few lager bottles .... so far have had no problems at all. None of my brews so far have been excessively fizzy and there doesn't seem to have been huge pressures building up when I took the caps off.

Same here but ... the possibility that the beer's too green to bottle (yet) or that it get's over primed means that these bottles carry a lot greater risk. Whilst I have been lucky and so have you - it's not really good practice. I would also expect your local pub landlord would be only too happy to put magners bottles to one side for you - these seem to be thick and the right colour.

I guess if you really want to play it safe you use PET or get a Corny (for lagers).

[andywills]

i've been getting 500ml green chezch bud bottles from the local. had no problems with them.

[alefric]

I asked same question recently but about summer lightning bottles...so far these have proved to be o.k

[mysterio]

My LHBS sells a dozen heavy bottles for under £2, not bad. I used to use the litre san miguel bottles with screw tops when I was starting out - they worked fine.

[MightyMouth]

I asked same question recently but about summer lightning bottles...so far these have proved to be o.k

Summer lightning is bottle conditioned so these are alreaymade for the purpose.

[J_P]

I can vouch for supermarket Timmy T bottles and Brakspear Oxford Gold bottles, avoid Wychwood though as for all the labels come off really easily you can't get a cap on them very easily.

[PMH0810]

I guess if you really want to play it safe you use PET or get a Corny (for lagers).

Does that suggest Cornies are not suitable for bitters/ales?

[Burner]

I saw a case somewhere that an infection in the batch ate up all the normally unfermentable sugars in the bottle and turned them into hand grenades that blew through the ceiling and that was with proper bottles so one can never be too careful. Cornies are good for ales too just don't carb them as much

[Stonechat]

I can vouch for supermarket Timmy T bottles and Brakspear Oxford Gold bottles, avoid Wychwood though as for all the labels come off really easily you can't get a cap on them very easily.

The Wychwood can be capped with a bench capper, but as J_P says with a two-handed capper don't bother.

IMHO the best commercial brewery bottles for homebrew re-use are the Fullers range.
They are 1. Brown glass, therefore no skunking.
2. Labeled with easy to soak off labels
3. Strong enough, as they are designed for bottle conditioned beers: 1848 and Vintage Ale. They use the same bottle for London Pride etc.
4. The beers taste good.

[jaytee1]

I get my mates invloved to get a good steady supply of quality brown bottles.
I get the bottles and they get returned some beer, a ratio of 10:1 seems to be quite agreeable.

I agree the Wychwood bottles arnt very user friendly, neither are batemans just because the labels dont soak off at all.

A friend up the road likes ciders and he brings me westons organic cider bottles and they seem to be good.

[MMBrewing]

I have bottled 3 bitters and one THC with the small (275ml?) green stella bottles . I don't like a lot of fizz so I bulk prime a 40pint brew with 50g of sugar and leave in the warm for 4 days before transferring to a cold garage. I am slowly getting rid of the stella bottles and moving onto proper ale bottles but the small size makes them ideal for quality control and of course they clear out very quickly. They are not about to get skunked as they are stored in cardboard boxes and stacked in the garage which has no windows...

YMMV but my brews all have a heck of a lot less fizz than stella does , so for me its an acceptable risk - if you wind up with a lot of sediment in your bottles I'd say you would have a problem though.