Waxing bottles

[CartoonCod]

I made a winter spiced beer that I plan on sharing around the holidays and I wanted to make it look nice to I got the idea of waxing the bottle tops with some coloured wax. I searched online quite a bit and most of the resources I found mentioned heating up glue sticks (to temps above 100 degC) with a frew crayons to get the desired effect. Other places mentioned that you can purchase coloured wax at certain wine/homebrew shops. I was a bit scared off by the glue because of the recent blowtorch fiasco at the December meeting and so far I haven't sourced any local coloured wax so I figured I would give it a try with paraffin wax with a few crayons. See the pics below. I figure the paraffin wax should be relatively easy to breakthrough without a blowtorch, but we'll see once I try to open one tomorrow.

Here is my proceedure if anyone wants to try it:
- melt 2 bars of wax with 3 crayon in a tin can in some boiling water (be careful, paraffin wax is flamable)
- dip the bottle in the wax, wait roughly 30 seconds and do it again until you can't see the cap (roughly 6 times)
- I found it works best when you do many at a time so you can dunk bottles while others are drying.

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[jacinthebox]

Very cool

[Celiacbrew]

Very professional looking. Well done.

[jeffsmith]

Very nice. And they look like they can be opened, unlike the PEIBC bottles.

[GuingesRock]

Looks very nice Adam. Would that help beer keep longer also?

[CartoonCod]

Looks very nice Adam. Would that help beer keep longer also?

From what I've been reading oxygen can permeate through wax. Maybe it will slow down the oxydation, who knows. I'm just doing it for aesthetics.

[CartoonCod]

Looks very nice Adam. Would that help beer keep longer also?

From what I've been reading oxygen can permeate through wax. Maybe it will slow down oxydation, who knows. I'm just doing it for aesthetics.

[BBrianBoogie]

Excellent job Adam, looks great!

[CartoonCod]

I plan on doing some more on the weekend with a different colour, and I think I will hang a small string around the neck of the bottle with a small loop before the wax dip so that you can use the string to help remove the wax.

[gm-]

Looks good, might give this a try once I bottle my sours

[CartoonCod]

I just tried to remove the wax today. It was difficult to remove with my hands, but with a butterknife it was pretty straightforward. I'm going to try my string idea later on this weekend.

[CorneliusAlphonse]

If you want it to come off easier maybe add a bit of softer wax? Beeswax or something ?

[CartoonCod]

On the beer waxing forums, I read that beeswax was expensive. Maybe more crayons will make it softer.