Does anyone have a good source of brown 750ml champagne bottles? I’ve scoured Google but cant seem to find any from regular homebrew sources, and I dont live near any good brunch places where I could harvest empties from. Any suggestions?
Drink up!
Make friends with someone who works at a restaurant that serves Sunday champagne brunch.
I have numerous cases of them, aquired that way. But I live on the far side of BFE from you.
Can you put a regular cap on a champagne bottle?
Davidg: I don’t think so. All the ones I have are cork only, the mouth is too big. And the few bottles I’ve seen that had caps, were of a larger size than normal.
All of the chanpagne bottles I have accept crown caps.
Most of the champagne bottles I’ve seen are green. I’ve moved on to brown Belgian 750ml bottles to achieve what I’m after. I do have a few used “Deus” bottles from New Years I have been reusing, but that could be a fun and expensive way to source your bottles.
I stand corrected, I was thinking of the brown belgian bottles…
Martinelli’s sparkling cider uses nice green champagne-type bottles. The kids like it for a special treat.
There’s a new Belgian-style crown bottle from Waterloo Container they sell at a lot of LHBSs now. It’ll hold up to 7 vol CO2, which is really the most you’d ever want.
Like these: 750 ml Belgian-style Beer Bottles - Crown Finish - Case of 12
I don’t think they will accept a regular cap. They have larger special caps like on the bottles of lambic- uncap then you still have to get a regular cork out.
Most European sparkling wine bottles use a 29mm crown. Lambics and Belgian beers generally need 29mm crowns. Domestic sparkling wine bottles use a “regular” 26mm crown. I’ve seen a few Euro beverages that take 26mm crowns, and some domestics that use 29mm crowns, so it’s not a hard and fast rule. But, except for a few “cork only” bottles, they’ll all take one of those two crowns.
Being able to crown a bottle of sparkling wine is necessary for the methode champenoise, so most of them will take crowns, even though most aren’t made using that method.
Wow! I’ve been doing it wrong for over 22 years. Who knew?
Everyone. We were all just being polite. No one wanted to bring it up before now.
Well, I think it’s pretty obvious, Carl…
You mean those bottles of prickly pear mead I bottled in 1992 aren’t amazing - they really just suck and I’m deluding myself? Dang! (and '93, and '97 wedding mead, and ''99 baby’s birth mead, and '03 engineering degree mead, and '05 1st Hawaii mead, and '06 1st year in business mead, and '07 1st mead from my own hives. and a case from every vintage since)
The champagne bottles of homebrewed barley wine I give as Christmas presents each year are being used as salad dressing, not to toast Christmas dinner, or ring in the new year?
Can I borrow Hermione’s time-turner and go back and fix all of those boo boos?
Carl, don’t worry your pretty little head about it. Everyone knows you’re the coolest/smartest/most humble/most handsome person here. We’re all just jealous.
Haters gonna hate, right?
You forgot best brewer!
American champagne bottles will accept a standard crown cap. It is only the European ones that need a larger cap.
Boulevard’s Smokestack series comes in brown 750ml that need a 29mm crown. It’s possible they’re importing these bottles from Europe, but that seems like a waste of money, and I don’t think they’re that dumb. There’s probably a North American source for 29mm crown bottles, like maybe this place: http://www.unitedbottles.com/catalogue/wine-champagne.php
You could argue Quebec is basically European, but I think some European people might disagree with you.
Exactly - I didn’t mean source, I meant bottle style. On that page, “American Sparkling” is the only bottle that takes 26mm crown caps.