Pen for writing on beer caps

k_9 · February 22, 2015, 7:05pm

well i tried a sharpie and it blurs on the caps. what else would be possible to use which will remain intact on the caps?

s_scoggin · February 22, 2015, 7:12pm

sharpie has always worked for me. instead of writing on the caps, maybe use a little scotch tape on the side of the bottle

k_9 · February 22, 2015, 7:36pm

thanks - but do not want tape on the bottles - like them pristine and more work to clean off. also i do make little name labels for the caps to tape on the caps; but sometimes - the name written just might be better.

flars · February 22, 2015, 7:59pm

I use a Sharpie also, but I either dry the caps well or let them dry over night before marking the caps. I also rotate the Sharpie, every few bottles, as I’m marking the caps.

dannyboy58 · February 22, 2015, 8:04pm

sharpie has always worked for me. +1 to making sure they are dry. I’ve also used a dry erase marker on the bottles. As long as they’re dry and warm it works. If they’re cold they’ll sweat and make it run. Later it’s easy to just wipe off.

jmck · February 22, 2015, 9:50pm

Like everyone is saying, if the cap is not 100% dry the sharpie will blur.

I usually finish bottling, towel-off the caps, then clean my bottling stuff; maybe have a beer. By that point they take the ink just fine.

brewingrover · February 22, 2015, 11:27pm

I use round stickers from Avery. #5408 fits within the cap and you can download Word templates from their site for printing. I wait a day or so before applying so the caps aren’t wet.

uncdeo · February 23, 2015, 2:37am

+4 on the sharpie…just needs to be dry.

voodoo_donut · February 23, 2015, 2:44am

Black sharpie works great but I mark the bottle caps after bottle conditioning in a marked box, long after bottling day as, like the OP, I find it tough to get the pen to write on caps still slick from starsan.

k_9 · February 23, 2015, 12:51pm

Ok thanks again for all of your comments.

mullerbrau · February 23, 2015, 5:22pm

I used to print out labels on Avery 3/4" diameter round labels and stick one on each cap. Looks kind of professional and the label goes with the cap, leaving no label to remove from the bottle.

edtude · February 23, 2015, 7:29pm

Wish I could take credit for this, but it was my daughters idea and it works great. Go to Staples or whatever your local office supply store is and get yourself a small whiteboard and then to the sticker aisle. Purchase some circular lables a pack of over 1000 lables --250 each of four different colors for like 5 bucks-- and the labels go on the bottlecap, no muss no fuss. Then you use your whiteboard with corresponding lables and you can put a hell of a lot of information on that whiteboard about the individual brews. Now anyone in my house can walk to our beer store and get the right thing without trying to decode anything.