Many days will have passed since brew day and any dry-hopping adventures, and the next day of fun is bottling day (if you’re bottling your beer)! I read a lot about the different types of cappers, such as the hand-held double lever cappers, bench cappers, corker/capper combos, etc. Each may have their own use and people will have their own preferences, but my instincts pointed me in the direction of this Super Agata Bench Capper since it seemed to be a more stable experience and was adjustable for all different bottle sizes. So, the choice was made and this arrived with all my other gear.
I’ve had the chance to bottle two cases each of the 12;z and 22oz bottles so far, and after that have the following feedback…
- there is a small red plastic space-holder that goes in any of the adjustment slots. find your spot for the capper, then put this one two slots up so if it slides you don’t forget where you were. if it’s one slot up, it gets in the way during the range of motion.
- take a paper towel, pour a bit of olive oil on it, and rub the cap magnetic cup with that to smooth the bottle release action. on day 1 the caps stuck a lot and also went on crooked sometimes even with best intentions.
- keep the unit flat and stable, but gently rock the handle left/right once fully pressed down on the cap. also turn bottle 180 after you have released it and cap it a second time if you like (just to be thorough). avoid over rocking though, the unit unless it’s bolted down could possibly fall over if you’re pressing too hard (or it seems like it could, hasn’t happened to me yet).
- if for some reason you have bad capping results, it might be the caps. i had these “fermenters favorites” caps which sucked the big one. i bought other caps which looked pretty much the same but from another vendor, and not a single bad capping outcome since switching.
I’m overall very happy with this capper and would recommend it to others. Oil the magnet cup, avoid fermenters favorites caps, and you’re good to go!
bodobeers 