How could we re-use screw cap wine bottles?

ClareBroommaker's picture

We have about 30 green 1.5 liter screw-cap wine bottles. How could those be re-used? Brainstorm, please.

I have had water stored in them awaiting the time when I would have fruit wines to add to them, but it turns out I probably need to purchase a better strain of yeast than is wild around my household. I don't want to buy the yeast, so wine making is out.

Do screw caps not hold carbonation well enough for beer? I don't make beer either, but just wondering.

Isn't the screw threading only on the outside of the bottle's neck opening? Why can't you use a cork? If the interior of the opening is smooth, I don't see what the difference would be that a cork wouldn't work.

Then you can re-use the bottles for wine or whatever else you're fermenting.

ClareBroommaker's picture

I offered them to someone who was asking on neighborhood website for bottles for beer making. He said no thank you. I don't know if that was because of the closure type, the size, or what.

So just trying to think of some novel but great uses for them.

They can be used to store water for an emergency if you are on well water. Put in two or three eye-drops of chlorine bleach before you tighten the cap. They can be used as mini-windows when building a cob wall—sort of like stained glass. Some people make pretty patterns with different colors of glass, but all one color in green would be a cool pleasant light source for a full west-facing wall. They can be used to bottle kombucha a fermented drink. If it is a pale green color, not too dark, you can use them to pasteurize raw water by partly filling them and laying them on the roof in full sun till they reach a temp at or above 141 degrees F./61C. They can be partly filled with water and stuck through a hole in a tin roof to be a mini-skylight, bring sufficient working light into the interior of a room that will be quite dark otherwise. Leak-preventive flashing or sealant around the edges of the hole can be improvised with several layers of aluminum foil. They can be filled with sand and stacked to act as a thermal mass that collects and retains heat in a south facing conservatory in use during winter, or a greenhouse. With a glass saw or the boyscout technique of scoring, open fire heating, and a cold water plunge to break off the bottom end, they can be planted upside down along a path way and used as chimneys for taper candles placed inside to light the path. You can drill a hole in the side near the base and stuff the bottle with mini-Xmas lights, allowing the power plug to exit the bottle thought the drilled hole. They make a nice display or homemade Xmas gift. Leave off the caps, though: the bottle gets hot if you close it at the top. They can be repurposed as sets of herbal-infused oil and vinegar, also nice gifts. They can be used to make tinctures of medicinal herbs and double distilled decoctions. They can be used near the fireplace to drop in partly burnt matches and the saved matches can be used as tinder for other fires. They can be used to store beeswax tapers safe from rats and mice in imperfectly built cellars and storerooms. Likewise good incense that needs to be kept from air exposure. They can be filled with different levels of water and tuned to make a musical instrument sounded by blowing across the tops like panpipes. They can be filled with homemade cleaning solutions, properly labelled and place in those top-handled cardboard sixpack cartons and let every room have its own set handy for use: kitchen, mudroom, bathrooms, barn, etc. Likewise they can store measured amounts of garden additives and treatments. They have the bases sawn off and then let them be nested one inside the other to become an impromptu pipe to move water from one side of a field to another or to help water regularly drain along a chosen channel without causing a lot of soil erosion to take place. They can be filled with soapy water and put into the outhouse, so the contents can be used to handwash the bum when there is no toilet paper, then wash the hands on the spot with a second soapy bottle. Not recommended where freezing temps prevail in winter.

I totally forgot! Go to the liquor store and get those barkeeper's pour spouts.
Fill the wine bottle with oil (decanted from one of those giant gas cans of oil) or vinegar or dishwashing liquid and insert the barkeeper's pour spout.

Label the bottles!!!!!

Voila! An attractive way to easily dispense oil, vinegar, or something else that's shelf-stable and can sit on the countertop.