Yes, I have finally decided to switch from using PET bottles to using glass bottles to bottle my beer. I just got my Twin Level Capper (S$45) to cap my glass bottles. I think it’s quite a good investment. In the past when I was using PET bottles, I use the screw top plastic caps. They were easy and reusable. However, the biggest problem with screw top bottles is that after screwing like 10 bottles, your hands start to feel raw. And when you are doing the bottling, you will tend to get some beer into your hands and this makes it even worse. And imagine you have to really tighten the caps hard so that the carbon dioxide will not escape. Ouch, doing it for a few times already and I think it’s a good time to change, just for the sake of my hands. Now with the capper, I think life would be much easier. All you have to do is to place the cap on the Twin Level Capper’s magnetic holder, position the Capper on the bottle and then put down both the handles. Sounds tough? Well, it shouldn’t be. A lot of brewers do it this way and I am sure that they are just as lazy as me.

The main reason why I didn’t use glass bottles previously is because I am afraid of bottle bombs. This happens if you overcarbonate your beer (by adding to much sugar) or if you bottle your wort/beer too early. And bottle bombs are very dangerous as broken glass can cause a lot of damage to your hands. I have read that some brewers had large gashes on their hands due to these bottle bombs. Anyway the Cooper’s microbrewing kit comes with PET bottles. So I used them in the beginning. Now, I think I am experienced enough to start using glass bottles. Oh, and I have the priming scoop, which gives me a very accurate amount of sugar to put in per bottle. Hopefully, I won’t get any bottle bombs in my cupboard where I store the beers.

I have been going around my neighbourhood collecting beer bottles. One of my favourite places is our local coffee shop. They have a lot of Tiger beer bottles sitting in crates outside waiting to be thrown into the rubbish bin. So I grabbed them before they were discarded. The good thing about this coffee shop is that they have people to serve them beer. The customer seldom handle the beer themselves. So with this, I am quite certain these bottles are clean and free of cigarette butts. Anyway, once I get the bottles home, I will usually soak them in bleach to sanitize the bottle as well as remove the labels. So far, I have collected about 16 640ml bottles already. Not bad for less than a week’s work, don’t you say? And it’s completely free! Don’t need to spend money on glass bottles for S$1 each. Better spend the money on higher quality malts.