Side by Side Comparison of: Beer Bottle Capper vs Learn To Brew LLC

Bottle capper works like a charm! I absolutely love it.

Works great and seals fantastic. It sets the cap great and tight. Not much effort to use. I imagine if you do alot it might get you tired but for me its perfect and compact.

I was having trouble with the last capper I had breaking bottle necks. It was at a point where I was breaking 4 or 5 bottles per batch. The lower grip arm on that capper was metal and I think that much pressure of metal on glass was too much. The Rigamonti has a plastic protector on the lower arm and I had no problems at all with bottling the last batch. It operates very smoothly and seems to be made well.

I initially had a plastic capper that broke while trying to bottle my first batch of beer. I bought this product as a replacement and have been thoroughly impressed by its durability and by the tightness of the seal this capper is able to make. Phenomenal Product!

Bought this for my husband as his tall stand-up type was starting to break. He really loves it and said it is much easier and faster than the stand on its own type. I dont like that it puts a deep circle in the center of the beer caps when you cap your beer as I like to save the caps for projects and cannot :( and the homemade beer when given as gifts don't look quite as nice with the indented caps. Iit has only been used on about 100 bottles so far so I do not know how well it will hold up after time but I will add to this review in a few months to say how it is working then.

Metal construction is very sturdy much more so than plastic body cappers, how ever it should be noted it is meant for 26.5 mm caps and is not adjustable. Definitely a worth while upgrade from the smaller plastic body capper.

The capper is made of metal and appears to be very sturdy. I bought it because the red plastic cappers that I have been using have broken in the past. During one bottling session, my only plastic capper broke part way through, leaving me with no way to finish the job. The beer store was closed, and my only capper had broken. So I always keep at least two working cappers just in case. When I saw this model made of metal I tried it to see if I could solve the problem better this way.The capper did a fine job of capping the bottles with a few caveats, which I address in this review.1. Other reviews say that the capper will stick to the caps, and I found that to be true. However, once I had lubricated the cone with some cooking oil I did not see that problem again. I lubricated the other moving parts of the capper with light machine oil as indicated in the instructions, but I put cooking oil inside the cone since I do not want to have petroleum oil directly on the bottles or caps.2. It has also been reported that because of the separate steel fingers in the cone, the teeth of the cap get caught in the slots between the fingers and not crimped properly. I also found that to be true. There are 21 teeth on the cap and 12 fingers in the cone (see photo). So I calculated the relative positions of the teeth and the slots and found that the teeth and the slots will align at the angles of 0 degrees, 120 degrees, and 240 degrees, thus trapping the teeth in the slots in those locations.But that problem is easy to get around. Each of the 12 fingers spans 30 degrees of the circle, so if you crimp twice, rotating the capper 15 degrees between the two operations, you are guaranteed to place the errant teeth in the middle of a finger for the second press. So that is how I capped my bottles.- Put on the cap.- Crimp the cap down.- Rotate the capper a small amount.- Crimp again.It takes less than a half second longer to do the second motion, and all of the caps were seated perfectly.3. Another reported issue is that it puts a dimple in the center of the cap. That is true as well. Some reviewers have stated that the purpose of the dimple is to pop out once the beer has carbonated. That is not true. My beer is now fully conditioned, and none of the dimples have popped up. See attached photo of the bottle cap that I removed from the first bottle. This is only a cosmetic issue, and is of no consequence to me because I put a sticker on each cap with the bottling date on it, so I cannot see the dimple anyway. However it might be a showstopper issue for others. The plastic cappers that I have rarely dimple the top of the cap.I use only new, standard 12 ounce beer bottles, so I cannot speak to the ability of the capper to handle all of the various rogue bottles that people use. The capper works fine on my standard bottles, and it seats the cap with a satisfying pop. There is a mechanical stop on the capper that sets the depth of the compression, so I could simply lean on the arms to pop the caps into place. There is no need to be careful of the force applied (within reaon). It takes a bit of force to put on the caps, but it is not excessive, and once you get used to it, it feels good.I have downgraded the review a bit because of the stated issues, but all in all the capper works fine if you take the time to work around the problems. The workaround is quick and easy. Lubricate the cone with cooking oil, set the cap twice rotating the capper slightly between presses. Then it works fine.And I am convinced that the capper will not break in the middle of a bottling session, which is why I bought it in the first place.Update: I took another look at that bottle cap and found that the teeth at 0 degrees, 120 degrees, and 240 degrees were, indeed, pinched in the slots of the capper as predicted. See my additional photo. The three teeth are called out with arrows. Those three teeth are sharp, and all the others are round, so they were caught between the fingers. The cap worked fine anyway, and the bottle was sealed properly. I will update again if I find any bottles with flat beer.

It's simple to use, almost obvious really, reliable and we'll made.

Packaged well. The actual box the bottle capper comes in is pretty flimsy and kinda damaged.But the bottle capper is sturdy and came intact. I am happy it is made out of sturdy metal and not anything thin. I have not used it it bottle my first brew yet but it looks like it will get the job done and last awhile.

I got this to bottle my kombucha, and it works well. It's nice and sturdy (I'm not afraid I'm going to break it) and it seals the caps on well.It gets stuck on bigger bottles (half liters), and although it still closes the bottle well, it's really annoying.Overall, good product, I would buy it again.

The Pros: It caps bottles, so at the very least it is a fully functional item. It's all metal, except for some high impact plastic (really feels more like nylon) that keeps the metal from touching the glass parts on the bottles so it's really sturdy. All of the joints are riveted so if it ever fails it should be really easy to repair. It's pretty comfortable to use.The Cons: It leaves round dents in the center of the caps, while this isn't necessarily bad, since it tells you that everything was lined up right and that it's capped properly, it's unattractive. Also I notice that the pleats on the crown caps aren't always uniform, it leaves a couple sticking up more, I suppose I could turn the bottle and re-cap, but that seems like more trouble than its worth since usually I cap many bottles at once. Some documentation would have been nice, a manual or directions, something, it's pretty easy to figure out anyway, but it's always nice to know you are doing it right.

I gave it 4 stars because, while I have no doubt that it won't break like the "Red Baron" plastic wing capper, I think that it has a few issues. Maybe it's just breaking in right now, but it gets stuck on -every- bottle. Every. Single. One. I've been reading online and it's suggested that you lubricate the capping cone, so I'll have to try that out as well. Again, it could just be breaking in.Also, it has spring-steel fingers instead of a solid capping cone. So, it's basically a normal capping cone but with maybe 8 or so vertical slots in it. I guess it helps to remove the bottles. I don't know if it's potentially dangerous or not, but about 3 pleats of the cap wind up going in these cutouts and not getting properly crimped. So, the cap winds up being completely crimped except for about 3 creases or pleats. The seal is fine, but I don't know about whether or not that lowers the maximum pressure the cap can hold. Personally, I use the old capping cone from the Red Baron capper and run over all the bottles really quickly to get the remaining pleats.I want to add, though, that despite the little issues, the capper feels amazing to use. There's no springiness to it like the red plastic one had. You press down and feel a solid "pop" when the cap is fully seated.

It get's the job done. It's not very smooth and leaves big indents in the caps. But it puts the caps on, what else can I say?

Too tight, kept breaking bottles. Ordered the plastic one, it worked great.

Makes a great seal but leaves a dimple in the middle of every cap, and doesn't have a magnet to hold the cap in place before crimping.

Not as "universal" as I thought it would be. Works well with most "micro-brewery" bottles with thick lips under mouth of bottle, but wouldn't work most bottles from "imports" that are locally produced by contract brewers that have thinner lips under the mount of the bottle. It's pretty easy to tell what bottles will work and what won't once you know what to look for.I see some reviewers complaining about the "dimple" the capper leaves in the middle of the cap. IMHO this is an engineering feature that helps provide a tighter seal.

It leaves a circular imprint on the cap. :(3 stars for sturdiness and effective sealing. The imprint is a cosmetic problem I don't like

NOT FOR SHORT NECK BOTTLESUse only for long neck bottles. This capper will break the neck on shorty bottles (bottles like Sierra Nevada uses)

Really Really Really Cheap. Its about broke and I only used it on 100 Bottles. I could pop out all of the rivets used for the hinges and find something suitable at the hardware store but who wants to do that!

Does not work on different sized necks on bottles.

The bottle capper never seemed to work right, on our third bottle it broke the bottle and the glass got stuck in the capper. Have used other types which worked much better.

Disappointing, about a dozen bottles into capping I reverted back to my old capper. This unit has difficulties coping with the various neck lengths of bottles.

Very disappointing capper. I ordered two of these. One for me and one for a colleague brewer. Both cappers presented problems after three or four batches. Its construction feels sturdy, but it gets shaky and soon you start losing caps and bottles of precious beer. Just a bad product that looks good.

I am returning this today. It requires excessive force to cap the bottle. I had to take the bottle outside and put protective glasses on for fear the bottleneck would shatter. It capped one bottle. The next bottle it would grip and slipped not being able to hold sufficiently well to allow the cap to be set. Maybe other will have better luck but for me I am going back to my old style capper.

Only lasted three 5 gal batches and two 1 gal batches before it stopped working.

The capper says its universal but it is not. Misleading product