Re-using bottles

Ravelleman

A friend of mine has about 300 beer bottles of varying size and, presumably, quality on his balcony and he offered them to me for home brewing.

I already have around 120 bottles that I bought from a home brewing supplier but it´s always useful to have more.

The question is, how do I know which can be used safely and reliably for bottle conditioning?

Many are from premium ale brands, while some are long necks.

I was going to limit myself to 500ml brown bottles. Is there any way to know if some of these are going to be unsuitable?

sharingan

All beer bottles can take carbonation. If you make a mess of it and overcarbonate you can get some bottle bombs. In my experience ale bottles seem to be the toughest, it is easiest to tell by weight (more glass == tougher).

As a rule, you should keep all of the flip tops regardless of colour (grolsch, flensberger, fisher, any lemonade/75cl fliptops etc.) they are too valuable to pass up, and they are the toughest bottles around.

I would ignore all 33cl bottles, they are just 50% more work and caps on bottling day.

Next start eliminating the green bottles and then the white ones (though I tend to keep some good clear ale bottles like bishops finger - it helps when judging clarity).

Then pass on the rejects to another home brewer or offer to take them to a bottle bank. I dont know if it is possible to reclaim any deposits on those bottles, you might have to do that through a pub - or let them reclaim it in exchange for something else you like (e.g. fliptops or a free pint).