Bottle Your Own Beer

The brew day seems like forever ago and fermentation is finally complete. After all the waiting, your thirst has hit an all-time high. Unfortunately, you’ve got to properly package your product first. When bottling, there are a number of options to consider, you just have to think about what’s right for you and your beer.

Bottles

Whatever you do, do not use twist-off style bottles. These are the bottles commonly used by the massive breweries that we all know, and feature a threaded lip to allow the bottle cap to screw on. While it may be easy to find these in large quantities in your neighbor’s recycling bin these are not designed for reuse.

Putting a standard cap on a twist-off bottle will undoubtedly result in leakage and potentially an infected beer. Stick to bottles that have a rounded, non-threaded lip. Also be sure to stick to amber colored bottles. As you know, light can be an enemy of beer and the darker brown tint helps block out UV rays to protect the beer. It’s advisable to stay away from the green and clear bottles that you see out there simply because they cannot block out light nearly as effectively.

Bottle Caps

There are two main types of caps: standard and oxygen-absorbing.

Standard caps are just that—the widely used standard that can be easily applied to a pry-off bottle lip. They’re good for properly sealing the beer in and keeping outside air out. They can be used with any bottle capper and can come in a variety of colors and styles to add a personal touch and complete the beer package.

There’s another type of cap known as the oxygen-absorbing cap. This cap is equipped with a special liner that is designed to absorb and retain oxygen that exists in the headspace between the liquid and the cap. The purpose of this is to reduce the potential for oxidation, which could cause off flavors in your beer. For this reason, oxygen-absorbing caps can also be a great choice beers that you may plan on aging or just storing for a period of time longer than 3 months.

Bottle Cappers

There are two main ways to get your bottle caps onto the bottles and each gets the job done just fine, picking which one you choose is also a matter of personal preference.

First, we’ll look at the wing-style triple-hinged capper. This capper is the most common perhaps due to its low cast and the fact that they are often included in homebrewing kits. They are a great choice for those that are new to homebrewing and bottling, or those that just don’t want to spend a lot of money on a bottle capper.

They feature a magnetic tray that holds the cap in place and three hinges and two handles that allow you to apply the proper amount of leverage to crimp the cap onto the bottle. The integrated spring-loaded system also makes the process a lot easier as it automatically raises the handles and cap tray when you release pressure. This capper can take a little getting used to at first, but once you get it down it can prove to be a very helpful tool.

Another option is the bench capper. This is more expensive than the wing-style capper but can make a lot quicker work of bottling your brew making it a great choice for those that brew larger batches. It features a wide base where you place your bottle and a spring-loaded arm and capper assembly that move up and down a tower.

This can be a lot easier to use because you can hold the bottle steady with one hand while applying pressure onto the cap with the other. You never have to worry about the bottle accidentally tipping over and breaking when you apply pressure, which can be an issue with wing cappers. Because of this, you can also more quickly and confidently get the cap seated onto the top of the bottle. You can also attach the entire capper to a workbench or countertop to make it even more stable. Bench cappers are also adjustable to allow you to use bottles of varying heights.