Expert: John Snyder - 4/1/2004

Question
I have been told that you can use the "twist top" bottles which some of the major beer manufacturers retail been in to do home brewing.  Is this true?  If you can, would you use an ordinary capping tool, or would you need a special type cap etc.?

thanks,
Jon

Answer
The bottles that use twist caps,are put on by a special capper.Those bottles are also very thinned walled,and not meant for re-use.These bottles would not be acceptable to pkg. a home brewed beer in,containing yeast and priming sugars,too subject to breakage.Regular caps that are used on returnable beer bottles,would not work,the neck chimes are different.My advice stick with re-usuable bottles.The standard 12oz.reusable beer bottle, normally sell for about $10 a case of 24 and can be re-used numerous times and around $3 for 200 caps.