Reddit reviews Red Baron Bottle Capper
We found 25 Reddit comments about Red Baron Bottle Capper. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Emily Plastic Wing CapperRed plastic CapperEconomical alternative to a bench capper
That is a bottle capper. It is used in homebrewing.
Don't buy a kit! They sell you all kinds of shit you won't use when there are better options for similar money.
Get a brewing bucket as if you don't have a bottler then this will make your life so much better.
Get 2 carboys (glass is best but better bottles will work too). Check Craigslist for these...you can get some awesome deals.
Get 1 Refractomoeter instead of a hydrometer because they use WAY less of your must to calculate and they aren't mega fragile like hydrometers are.
You will want an auto siphon
You will want a carboy brush that fits on a cordless drill because cleaning a carboy without one fucking sucks (and for 18 bucks this is a no brainer).
You will need sanitizer. I personally like Iodophor because it's super cheap, it doesn't really foam up and it lasts forever. I bought one of THESE bottles like 2 years ago and it is about half full even though I brew between 50-100 gallons a year.
I always advocate people start with beer bottles rather than wine bottles. The reason for this has less to do with the bottles and more to do with equipment. The Ferrari Bottle Capper is 14 dollars while a good floor corker for wine bottles will set you back 60 bucks. In addition, it's cheaper to bottle in 20 ounce beer bottles with caps rather than in wine bottles with good corks. Use of a double lever corker for wine bottles should be considered a war crime...seriously...unless you're a masochist who loves dumping wine everywhere and having to clean it afterwards...then just avoid them...they are absolutely awful.
If you go the wine bottle route then NEVER use agglomerated or colmated corks (the ones made from tiny pieces of cork glued together) as they fall apart and will leave chunks in your bottles. In addition they don't age well, so you are much more likely to lose your brew to spoilage. I like synthetic Nomacorc but you can also buy very good quality solid natural corks as well.
Good oxygen absorbing bottle caps on the other hand are mega cheap. Again...this isn't about one being better than the other, so you can use either one.
For wine bottles, I REALLY like the ones with screw tops because they make it nice and easy to cap your bottles once opened. But for all of your bottles buy these locally...shipping will double or triple the cost of these vs buying locally. I get them for 15 bucks a case a few miles from my house...they're almost 30 a case on Amazon or close to that from Midwest or from Ohio (shipping is like 11-15 dollars a case.)
For beer bottles...I prefer clear, but they'll be tough to find locally so I often end up with brown ones. Again...buy these locally not online due to shipping costs. Your local brewing supply stores buy these pallets at a time so even Amazon can't compete with the lack of shipping costs.
6.5gal plastic fermentor - $17.88 (Don't bother with glass fermentors!)
6.5gal Bottling Bucket - $18.81
Hydrometer - $12.99
3 3-piece airlocks - $5.00 - trust me, they'll break.
stopper not needed with plastic fermentor
Bottle filler - $5.09
10 ft 3/8th inch tubing - $10.99
Auto siphon - $8.76
don't need a bottle brush with plastic fermentor
144 bottle caps - $5.78
Use any pure sugar for priming - just calculate it right. I use cane sugar without issue.
Wing bottle capper - $15.48
Dial thermometer not really needed if you're slapping on an adhesive one, but definitely get this for a hot liquor tun if you're doing that.
Wine thief - $11.20
I never used a funnel or fermentor brush - you can use anything to clean but I suggest Oxyclean rinses
32oz Star San - $20.70
Adhesive Thermometer - $4.84
Total Cost: $137.52. Not ridiculous savings BUT you get 32oz of star san instead of 4oz of io-star which will last you years and sanitizer is expensive. You get a plastic fermentor instead of glass which is so much easier to clean and keep light out. Glass carboys are good for aging and aging is good for wine or special beers. Focus on simple ales that don't require it first.
The real savings come when you do all grain and make your own equipment. You can save $137 alone if you buy a big stainless steel pot and slap on a dial thermometer with a ball valve.
I used one of these back when I made my own soda. Capping them goes remarkably quickly. (Not great if you need any sort of pressure release, of course.)
$17 with prime shipping: http://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-Red-Baron-Bottle-Capper/dp/B001D6KGTK/
I've made some slight modifications to this, mostly to make it easier to follow. I've also included steps that should be quite obvious to someone who's done any homebrewing before, but I wish someone had told me when I first started.
I'd link to the original, for the sake of attribution, but the user who posted this deleted their account not long after I wrote everything down.
This will produce a sweet fruit-mead (or melomel). WARNING this will be far more alcoholic than it tastes, and should not be consumed if you've recently taken antibiotics, or suffered gastric distress, as the yeast culture will still be alive, and will happily colonize your intestines if your gut microbiome is too fucked up.
Equipment: Most of this stuff will be a good deal cheaper at your local homebrew store, but I've included amazon links (also to the yeast).
At least 2 (3 is better, for reasons we'll get to) 1-gallon jugs (I don't recommend scaling this up), glass preferred. Add an extra jug for each additional batch. This one includes a drilled stopper and airlock
Drilled stoppers (or carboy bungs) and airlocks, non-drilled rubber stoppers.
An autosiphon and food-safe tubing.
Food-safe sanitizing solution (I recommend StarSan).
An electric kettle with temperature selector is useful, but not needed.
If you want to bottle it rather than just keeping a jug in your fridge:
Empty beer or wine bottles (just save your empties), capping or corking equipment, caps or corks, and a bottling wand.
Ingredients:
2.5 lbs (1130g) honey, clover recommended.
A cup (approximately 250ml) or so of fruit (I recommend blackberries, and I strongly recommend against cherries, other recipes have worked for me, but this yields a very medical flavor with cherries).
1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 yeast (a champagne yeast notable for its hardiness, its ability to out-compete other microorganisms, and its high alcohol tolerance).
Optional: potassium sorbate (to reduce yeast activity when our ferment is done), pectic enzyme (aka pectinase - for aesthetic purposes). Both are also available in bulk.
Process:
Day 1:
Mix sanitizing solution with clean water at specified proportions in one of your jugs, filling the jug most of the way. Stopper it, shake it. Remove stopper, set it down wet-side-up (to keep it sterile), pour the fluid to another jug. There will be foam left behind, this is fine, don't bother to rinse it or anything. At low concentrations this stuff is totally fine to drink, and won't ruin your fermentation or flavor.
Add honey to jug, all of it.
If you have a kettle, and your jug is glass, heat water to around 160F (71 Celsius), pour a volume into your jug roughly equal to the amount of honey present. Fix sterile stopper to jug. Shake until honey and water are thoroughly combined. The heat will make it FAR easier to dissolve the honey. Set aside for an hour or so while it cools. Add clean water 'til mostly full, leaving some room for fruit and headspace.
If you're missing a kettle, or using a plastic jug, this is gonna be a little harder. Fill most of the way with clean water (I recommend using a filter) leaving some room for fruit and headspace. Fix sterile stopper, shake 'til honey and water are thoroughly combined. This will take a while, and you will need to shake VERY vigorously.
At this point, you should have a jug mostly-full of combined honey and water. To this, add fruit (inspecting thoroughly for mold, don't want to add that). Then dump in a single packet of the Lalvin EC-1118 yeast, don't bother rehydrating it first or anything, it'll be fine going straight in. Add pectic enzyme if you have it (this does nothing to the flavor, it just makes the end product less cloudy). Stopper it up, shake it again. This jug now contains your "must" (pre-ferment mead).
Pour some sterilizing fluid in a bowl, put a carboy bung/drilled stopper in the bowl, with an airlock. Ensure full immersion. Let sit for a minute. Replace stopper with your bung/drilled stopper, affix airlock. Fill airlock with clean water, sanitizing fluid, or vodka. Rinse the stopper, fix it to your jug of sanitizing fluid.
Place must-jug in a dark place, I recommend a cabinet or closet.
Days 2-7:
Retrieve jug, give it a little jostle. Nothing so vigorous as to get your mead into the airlock, but enough to upset it. This is to release CO2 buildup, and to keep any part of the fruit from drying out. The foaming from the CO2 release may be very vigorous. Do this over a towel for your first batch. If the foam gets into your airlock, clean your airlock and reaffix it. Perform this jostling procedure at least once per day, more is better.
Day 8:
Final jostling, I recommend doing this in the morning.
Day 9:
let it sit, we want the sediment to settle.
Day 10: Time to get it off the sediment
Shake sterilizing fluid jug. Affix tubing to siphon. Put the siphon in the sterilizing fluid, shake the jug a little just to get the whole siphon wet. Siphon fluid into either a third container or a large bowl. This is all to sterilize both the inside and outside of your siphoning system.
Remove siphon from jug. Give it a couple pumps to empty it of any remaining fluid. Place siphon in your mead jug, leaving the end of the tubing in sterilizing fluid while you do this.
Take the jug that you just siphoned the sterilizing fluid from. Dump what fluid remains in it. Place the end of the tubing in this jug, then siphon the mead into it. Make no attempt to get the last bit of mead into your fresh container, it's mostly dead yeast and decomposing fruit.
Add potassium sorbate if you have it, stopper the jug, place it in your fridge.
Clean the jug you started in. Clean your siphon and tubing.
Day 11:
Let it sit
Day 12 or later: time to transfer again, or bottle it.
If you no longer have a jug full of sterilizing fluid, make one.
Repeat the earlier steps to sterilize the siphoning system, with a bottling wand attached to the end of the tubing if you want to bottle.
Sterilize your bottles or a clean jug, either with fluid or heat.
Siphon mead either into your bottles or jug. Stopper/cap/cork when done.
Put your jug/bottles in the fridge.
The yeast culture is still alive, and will continue to ferment. The fridge, and optional potassium sorbate, will merely slow this down. I recommend drinking any bottles within two months, to avoid a risk of bursting bottles. The mead should already be tasty at this point, but usually tastes much better after a couple more weeks.
EDIT: Fixed the formatting up a bit.
I think the reason champagne uses different corks than wine is due to the carbonation. The champagne type are more secure I imagine due to higher pressure inside. The issue with mason jar lids is that in canning, the contents are at a negative pressure and actually pulls the seals tighter. If you put carbonation in the jar then you have positive pressure pushing the seal apart and therefore the CO2 tends to escape. I would try small plastic bottles or someone here was going to try beer bottles with caps. You can get caps and a crimper and reuse old bottles. Not sure how it will work, the jury is out ;-)
To add to what /u/Sintered_Monkey has said, a kit to start can be a pretty good idea, though honestly, you could skip extract altogether^1. I got into the hobby with a 1 gallon all-grain kit from Brooklyn Brew Shop. They're $40 and include everything you need to get started brewing, so long as you have a couple of 8 quart or larger pots and a strainer (you can get by with 2 pots, but 3 can make it a bit easier; alternatively, brew-in-a-bag, or BIAB, could allow you to do this with just a single pot and is honestly easier). You'd also need one of these to cap your bottles. I'd recommend this route because it allows you to jump into the hobby pretty thoroughly; even a basic BIAB all-grain setup is doing all of the fundamental steps of beer-making that the pros use, and any gear upgrades beyond that (and you will end up having gear upgrades, because there are lots of fun toys in this hobby) are just to further refine your process. If you end up not liking it, you're out not even a hundred bucks. If you do enjoy it or just want more info, come join us at /r/homebrewing!
^1 (One of the first steps in brewing is extracting sugars from grains; this resulting liquid is called wort. With all-grain brewing, you do this extraction step yourself; with extract, you're basically buying concentrated wort—more expensive on an ingredient basis, you have less control over the final product, but your equipment costs are less.)
Oh yes, and it is quite simple to get the stuff together without buying a kit. Do you have a local home brew store?
This subreddit's wiki which includes a beginner section: https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/wiki/index
There are several videos on youtube that have good instructions.
Here is a basic list of gear to brew beer in a bag. You can get all of this stuff on amazon if you don't have it already. This is not the best list, but it works.
http://homebrewmanual.com/home-brewing-equipment/
Some of the stuff you won't likely have at home:
Beer recipes: http://beerrecipes.org/
To get grains from amazon, type in the grain type and it will provide you options. If you don't have the ability to mill it yourself, you can order it crushed. Its not ideal, but if you don't have a homebrew store near you and don't have your own mill....it will work. You will have to measure out the correct amounts for each grain that you add on your own from the bulk that you ordered. If you want to brew with extracts, you can also order those on amazon as well.
You can order hops on amazon the same way as grains or extracts.
Thanks for the input. Is this the one you have?
You might want to then go more long-term and get him some bottling tools. Depending on how he wants to bottle, or what kind of mead he's making, a wine corker, a case of empties, and handful of corks might be something nice for down the road. Especially if he has something already aging in a carboy.
If it's supposed to be sparkling then you might want to stick with the relative ease of a bottle capper and some campaign bottles. TIL that in North America at least most sparkling wine bottles actually take regular ol' beer caps - which is incredible to learn. Martinelli's apple cider is the only place I've ever seen it done, but I guess it's common. If he doesn't have a regular bottle capper, or has something that isn't as easy on the bottle as one of these then maybe a capper and caps would be good.
Hope this helps!
It is a huge pain and if you have a bottle capper like that one get a second one, they can break. I went with the 16 OZ. EZ cap beer bottles.
It is fairly easy to get large equipment like vessels and burners locally in India but it's the little stuff that makes your brew day/bottling day easier like the bottle fillers and auto siphons which are kind of difficult/expensive to get hold off. Depending on which city you are in hops, malts and yeast can be easy to source especially if you have any brewpubs around. The selection of hops is again very limited so like like /u/chino_brews suggested you could get bulk hops from YCH. Dry brewing yeast is available (Fermentis, Lallemand) but it is mostly sold in 500g bricks so I would recommend picking up some 11g packets as well. You should definitely pick up a large 16/32 oz bottle of StarSan and a tub of PBW or something similar for cleaning and sanitizing. I would also pick up a hand held bottle capper, a racking cane, a couple of airlocks and a spigot for bottling. Almost everything else can be improvised or jugaad if you're a little handy :)
Does anyone know if the standard red bottle capper like this one can be used or modified to work on 29mm champagne bottles with crown seals?
Wow, I must be lucky. I have one of these, and used it to bottle two 5 gallon batches to far in recycled bottles (mostly Guinness, Magic Hat, Sam Adams, Samuel Smith), and haven't broken a bottle, and haven't had a leaky cap. It isn't the fastest thing, but it does the job.
edit:
Here is the Amazon product page with reviews.
http://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-Red-Baron-Bottle-Capper/dp/B001D6KGTK?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_search_detailpage
Swing top bottles
I'm guessing you had the Red Barron. There's others out there, but the market is mostly RB or bench. There are smaller bench cappers out there that might work, but I've also fully invested in swing top bottles because I was so angry my wing capper broke.
A bottle capper.
I've been using the standard red bottle capper, but the thing is really kind of junk (I have two actually). It's always slipping, sometimes takes a few tries to get it right, technique needs to be spot on etc.
I am using (what appears to be )https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TFVXUC0//ref=as_li_ss_tl?creativeASIN=B00TFVXUC0&imprToken=tPx24TDfjZE4TvrGDKk5Rg&slotNum=4&ie=UTF8&linkCode=w61&tag=villaegbakery-20&linkId=9e883a23a0cbb04c0ca1726a5999b954 Looks like the exact same one here https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001D6KGTK//ref=as_li_ss_tl?creativeASIN=B001D6KGTK&imprToken=tPx24TDfjZE4TvrGDKk5Rg&slotNum=1&ie=UTF8&linkCode=w61&tag=villaegbakery-20&linkId=137e7f2db4bc77fc4b1a6d281597aa42
Any recommendations for a better capper that doesn't suck?
I use this -- a bench capper would be nice if I lived in a big enough place that I were willing to semi-permanently dedicate table space to it, but that particular item works just fine for me for now.
If you have a homebrew shop near you, you can buy a bottle capper for like $20 and recap, or tighten the caps. Hell, you could probably just bring your bottles there and they'll let you recap it for free. Or if you know someone who homebrews, or if there's a brewery near you that caps their beer, etc.
The most common caper is called the "Red Baron Bottle Capper." Here's what it looks like:
https://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-1170-Baron-Bottle-Capper/dp/B001D6KGTK
You need something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-1170-Baron-Bottle-Capper/dp/B001D6KGTK
And a bag of caps. They are single use.
What I do is bottle at least one bottle of Kombucha in a plastic 20 oz soda bottle, and the rest in glass. Once the soda bottle is very firm to the squeeze, I put them all in the fridge.
I've never heard of a wooden capper can you link me a picture? The cheapeast option is something like this but bench capper works way better imo.
It's actually for putting bottle caps on, not removing them.
Anchor Hocking Heritage Hill Glass Beverage Dispenser with Spigot, 2 Gallon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BWC0E42/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_f4uhAbF8X8STT
1 X Organic Kombucha Scoby - Live Culture by Scoby Kombucha https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009ZW8RP4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.5uhAb83TMN5D
Unbleached Cheesecloth 9 Sq ft 100% Cotton Reusable-Great Filter or Strainer for Cheese/Kombucha scoby/Glass jar/Wine making https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M612PJU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_j7uhAbFHCHX7S
Adhesive Temperature Strip https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0079JZLP4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i9uhAbJBGF75D
Red Baron Bottle Capper https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001D6KGTK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_xbvhAbFY4CJN3
Beer Bottle Crown Caps - Oxygen Absorbing for Homebrew (Gold) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZSEH8VW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_YcvhAbCE0836F
Bottles Free: Just start saving old beer bottles (not the twist on style bottle) submerge them in hot water for 5 min, labels peel right off.
Sanitizer: White Vinegar, I prefer Star san.
Prince of Peace Tea, Black, 100 Count https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AP70BKC/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_divhAbY9D73AP
With these products, you will be good to go and your volume is 2 gallons, so by the time your upgrading after your first batch. For me a 1 gallon container never cut it. With the capper you don’t have to worry about giving your friends a bottle of your Kombucha and never seeing your $4 swing cap bottle again. Just save old beer bottles or ask your friends for them.
To answer your question, the temps you listed are to low. For all brewing temperatures are very important. You want to keep your fermentation in the 70s. Here’s how you fix the problem without keeping your home heater on 24/7.
Round Kombucha Heater Kit for Continuous Brew Crocks & Dispensers. 10" Brewing & Fermentation Heat Mat, Works with any Ceramic, Glass, Stone or Porcelain Containers (10"-120VAC 7-Watts) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072S6XBQJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_1tvhAb04PYXBK
Enjoy... In the long run you will spend less by starting off with the right equipment.
If you did this a lot maybe one of these would be better:
https://www.amazon.com/Ferrari-1170-Baron-Bottle-Capper/dp/B001D6KGTK
Just crimp the cap on.