I have forgotten how good bottled hombrew is

[garwatts]

Takes two seconds to place the cap on and push the arms down and you can cap anywhere you please

But not cap anything you please - lots of bottles won't work in these cappers (Wychwood bottles and annoyingly the stubby Leffe bottles too) - pain in the bum unless you're careful to make sure the bottles you're refilling are compatible with your capper . I started using a bench capper and they will cap everything I have found so far - and I reckon you get a better finish on the cap too

Absolutely right - I have tried both and the bench capper is far superior.

[booldawg]

I may have to invest in a bench capper. I bottle 100% of my ales.

I have the capper shown in Mys' photo. It is very quick and I can usually cap 36 bottles in around 5 minutes but there is the odd stubborn bottle. The Kopperburg (sp) cider bottles are impossible!

[jonnyhop]

So tonight I cracked open a bottle of my summer ale to compare to the corny version from the same batch.
To be fair, I gave both 3 months maturation, nice summer recipe using challenger and cascade:

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=22765

I found the bottle infinitely preferable, giving a crisp taste to the comparison of a waterey beer from the corny. It should be pointed out that I have used bottles for 20+ brews and the corny for 1. I sampled further and the gap narrowed. I concluded that bottled beer is preferable in terms of fizz and in terms of hop flavour. It was crisper and fresher. The corny is still nice though and slides down.

[prolix]

I bottle a few each cornie for comparison and tested a bottle against a cornie last night and found the bottle fizzier, after pouring it to another glass to loose the fizz there was no difference. Might be my cornies are at 3 psi and my bottles much higher but I don't like dissolved CO2 (sparkling water is foul).

[critch]

At full chat me and one the partners can bottle t least 20 a minute from our bottling line. Even on the test kit that has a single bottling head we can do about 150 ish an hour. Comercial bottles are sold sterile and ready to use (apart from peracetic-ing the crown caps) we're ready to hit the ground running on a bottling day i use 2.5bb grundys for my sterile resivoir and it allows us to impart a good constant flow

[adm]

Interesting stuff Critch. How are the commercial bottles packaged? Every time I've seen large amounts of bottles, they've just been plastic wrapped in cases on a pallet. What kind of wrap do the ones you use have that guarantee they are sterile after shipping - and where do you get them from?

Thanks!

[Mitchamitri]

Given the cost differential I would hope a bench capper is better than a two handled capper.