Reddit reviews CASE OF 12 - 16 oz. EZ Cap Beer Bottles - AMBER

Not sure if you have found these yet. They are about $1.60 a piece... The best way to overcome the fewer bottles is to brew more beer =)

http://www.amazon.com/CASE-OF-12-Bottles-AMBER/dp/B005CIFIDO/ref=pd_sim_indust_1

Mead is super easy and rather cheap compared to other types of brewing. If you have a local homebrewing store they can help you get started and will have everything you need, most major cities have one and I find that the people are almost always very helpful.

The first thing is to decide volume, then if you want to boil or not, and then recipe (which includes batch strength). I prefer to boil my mead to help dissolve the honey and make sure its good and sanitized, but thats not entirely necessary

So Optional Equipment (if you boil)

1 Big Boil Pot - This needs to be big enough to do however much you want as a batch. If you get a 5 gallon pot, this is good enough for 2-3 gallon mead as well as if you got into Extract Beer Brewing. If you buy a 10 gallon boil pot (usually $120 or so) its big enough for 5 gallon All grain beer batches, as well as 5-8 gallon mead batches

2 Burner - If you are doing smaller batches your stove can handle it, if you move up to big batches or beer batches it helps to have a propane burner and propane tank.

Non optional Equipment:

1 Fermentation/Secondary Vessel - There are two options here. The cheaper route is the 8 gallon buckets with a lid and an airlock. A rubber mallet also really helps to get it on the first time (trust me here). They are about $20. The second option which I'd recommend is one of the Speidel fermenters, they are a bit more expensive at $50-$60 but have a nice spigot for siphoning and are super nice. You also need an aging vessel as you need to let it sit for 5-6 months before bottling. For this I recommend a PET carboy or a smaller Speidel Fermenter

If you are doing 5gallon, get the 8g Speidel or equivilant sized bucket. Get a plastic carboy or the smaller speidel fermenter for aging

The downside to not doing the Speidel fermenters is then you need a bottling bucket and a siphon pump to get the mead out of the bucket, I like the speidel fermenters because I can just transfer to it and use it to bottle with.

Bottle Filler and 3' rough of Hose - This is for bottling

Bottles - I prefer the nice flip top ones but they are usually around $30 for only 12 of them. The other option is to buy some bottle caps, and clean

Iodophor / Star San - Cleaner, just google them. You need this to clean all your equipment as well as your fermenters

There are some minor other things, such as a Big spoon for stirring, having a thermometer is a good idea... maybe other things but I think I covered most of it

Recipe: (The recipe itself)
Normal recipes are around 3 pounds of honey per gallon of water, so you need to get 15lbs of honey if you do 5 gallons. More honey will up the alcohol, less honey will lower it

A vial or two of yeast. I like to pitch two of them just to make sure it starts. I use Sweet Mead Yeast

Yeast Nutrient - Mead doesnt have some of the nutrients beer does, so a bit of this added per the instructions gets the yeast going

Optional - Flavoring. I tried out strawberry this time, totally optional but just google it and you can find it. Usually it comes in a tiny bottle

Instructions

First you dissolve honey into water. If you are doing a 5 gallon batch, use 5.5 gallons of water. If you are going to boil, nows a good time. During this process, Add the yeast nutrient. Put the mixture into your fermenter vessel. Cool it down to room temperature (important)

Its fairly important to ferment at 68-70 degrees for at least the first week or two (yeast stuff), so if you don't have central heating/cooling that could be an issue you have to tackle from another angle. At this point, pitch the yeast and seal it up and let them do their job

Wait about a month for it to ferment (the airlock will go bloop bloop a lot). Sanitize the hose and secondary/aging vessel, this vessel should be close to your actual volume so there isn't head room. Then transfer to the secondary, pop the airlock on it and let it age for usually 3-6 months, depending on your patience. At that point, transfer it back to a different vessel (to get it off the trub) and during this process add any flavoring (if any). Finally, siphon into bottles using that little spring bottle filler attached to the hose, and cap it

That was a bit long winded but I was trying to be thorough. if you have any questions feel free to PM me!

I use amber bottles, like this one.

Amber beer bottles, like this one, or amber wine bottles, like this one, also work great and might look a little nicer but are harder to label.

You can probably find these bottles cheaper on non-amazon websites too, just do a google search for "amber bottles" and look around. They come in different shapes and sizes too.

I have a set of fastracks and a set of [these bottles] (http://www.amazon.com/CASE-OF-12-Bottles-AMBER/dp/B005CIFIDO) and they work resonably well together. Every now and then one of the caps gets in the way, otherwise they fit well and are 10 times easier for storage than a bottle tree.

Amazon has grolsch type bottles for homebrewing.

This is an example. If you search "homebrewing bottles" you should find several different types.

http://www.amazon.com/CASE-12-Beer-Bottles-AMBER/dp/B005CIFIDO/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1449637437&sr=8-7&keywords=homebrewing+bottles

If there is a homebrewing supply store near you they probably have them as well.

Most of the online retailers carry them. For example. Northern Brewer has them for $29.99/dozen (amber, 16 oz.) Amazon has them too.

Is there some other facet of this search that I'm not getting?

I recommend bottles that are rounded. I've had a couple bottles explode in the past, but they were the type pictured, the ones with corners. I think those create weak points, perhaps? My kombucha is extrememly bubbly, but it never breaks the rounded bottles!

http://www.amazon.com/CASE-12-Beer-Bottles-AMBER/dp/B005CIFIDO?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage

This?

If you intend to have a sparkling product, you can try flip-top bottles. I have a bunch that originally held beer that I've successfully used for bottling carbonated things.

As others have said, champagne yeast doesn't guarantee a sparkling end product.

Mason jars are made to withstand vacuum, not internal pressure. so you're more likely to have an explosion with those than a bottle made to have internal pressure. The Grolsh style beer bottles work great. I also like using 1/2 gallon growlers (get the ploy caps).

So, an alternative to kegging if you aren't ready for the expense is the buy those flip top brown bottles like these.

I have those, as well as a keg (which I only use for special occasions/parties right now as I don't have a kegerator) - the flip top bottles remove a lot of the hassle involved in bottling as you don't need to cap them. They are also larger than standard 12 oz bottles, so it takes less time.