Reusing Craft Brewer Stubbies

[Joe Palooka]

Hiya.
I have been buying microbrew stubbies when I can, and bringing the bottle home and reusing.

The other night I had a Lobethal Bierhaus hefeweizen, and a Little Creatures Bright Ale.

I like the Bierhaus bottle, but the Little Creatures one (with neat cherubs around the neck) seems thin and likely to break.

Has anyone had bad luck with reusing craft brewer bottles?

Thanks!

 

[joecast]

half the bottles i used were malt shovel. used them several times over with no problems. they seem pretty sturdy. i have used LC bottles before as well with no issue.

 

[Adamt]

If you have a bench style capper (Superautomatica) you'll be fine with any stubby.

 

[Crunched]

I've used LC stubbies with no problems before. Currently have about 30 LC and 40 JS stubbies waiting to be sipped.

 

[white.grant]

I had saved a bunch of chimay stubbies to use for my belgians but was disappointed to find that the ID of the bottle top was too narrow for my bottle wand. Very thick glass apparently.

cheers

grant

 

[Joe Palooka]

Ok, that's great. Thanks all.

 

[Pollux]

I have reused JS, LC, Cantinas and also Montieths....

All done with a hand capper and a claw hammer.........


Not one break or crack yet..Touch wood.

 

[big_alk]

be careful with reusing commercial bottles, they are "non returnable" in most cases and made as cheap as possible.
Another thing you need to be wary of is their pressure rating, which is measured in gas vol of CO2
some commerically available bottles are only rated to 3 vol, which is less than your average hefe.
if you miscalculate your priming sugar or it doesn't mix evenly throughout your batch, expect some explosions.


Al