I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

--
Buy a man a beer and he wastes an hour.
Teach a man to brew and he wastes the rest of his life.

I always just throw my corks into some boiling water, put a plate on to hold
them immersed and let them sit for 10-15 minutes. It softens the corks and
makes it easier to put them in. And it does a certain amount of sanitation.
Bryan
"Duck Redbeard" wrote in message
...
I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

--
Buy a man a beer and he wastes an hour.
Teach a man to brew and he wastes the rest of his life.

Duck Redbeard wrote:
I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

--
Buy a man a beer and he wastes an hour.
Teach a man to brew and he wastes the rest of his life.

It helps if they are wetted and possible softened in warm water.
Sulfite may be usefull if you have problems with bottle infections
(although you shoudl not if your wine is sulftied properly).

Do NOT boil them.

"Duck Redbeard" wrote in message
...
I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

Corks should not be boiled because it tends to destroy their physical
integrity.

What I've found works quite well is soaking them in several changes of warm
water until the water runs clear, then draining them in a collander before
inserting. The water softens and lubricates them some so they go in easier
and conform to the neck of the bottle better. Mind that you don't use them
while they're sopping wet or when you compress them in the corker they'll
drip water into the bottle. Also, look at both ends of the cork and put the
more defect free end into the corker first. If neither end looks good,
throw it away. If you drop one on the floor, either re-clean it or throw it
away.

Sulfiting the corks really isn't necessary, but having the correct level of
sulfite in the wine is.

Tom S
www.chateauburbank.com

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 19:13:51 -0400, "Duck Redbeard"
wrote:

I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

First, you need some sort of corker. Don't laugh, had someone in my
store the other day looking for smaller corks because the ones he had
were too large for his bottles. The ones he had were standard #9
corks.

Second, further advise depends on

a) style of corker: hand or floor
b) diameter of corks: #8 (usually 22mm diameter), #9 (23 or 24mm
diameter).

Based on customer feedback (NOT personal experience), if you have a
hand corker and 24 mm #9's give up now.

If you have a floor corker, the corks probably don't matter.

Oh, and on the topic of boiling corks....the old books say to do this.
And they are correct, but ONLY for solid corks. The corks that are
bonded together chips of cork should not be boiled.

Steve

"Bryan M. Everitt" wrote in message
news:71FYf.908296$xm3.311182@attbi_s21...
I always just throw my corks into some boiling water, put a plate on to
hold them immersed and let them sit for 10-15 minutes. It softens the
corks and makes it easier to put them in. And it does a certain amount of
sanitation.
Bryan
"Duck Redbeard" wrote in message
...
I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

--
Buy a man a beer and he wastes an hour.
Teach a man to brew and he wastes the rest of his life.



Cox it "From Vines to Wines" recommends boiling your corks for 5 min's.
This is an excellent book but that is terrible advise. I followed it for a
couple of years and then realize that after about 2 years the boiled corks
start turning to mush, leaking and generally falling apart. Boiling really
breaks down the structure of the cork and is very bad for them.

Learn from the commercial wineries. They do not boil. In fact they do not
do anything. They open the bag and use them. That is what I do now and
have had no trouble. Rinse them if you want to or if they have cork dust on
them but please do not boil them

Ray

Steve wrote:
On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 19:13:51 -0400, "Duck Redbeard"
wrote:

I am about to bottle my first batch and have a few questions about corks.
Do they need to be sanitized (if so, with what)? Should they be boiled
first?

First, you need some sort of corker. Don't laugh, had someone in my
store the other day looking for smaller corks because the ones he had
were too large for his bottles. The ones he had were standard #9
corks.

Second, further advise depends on

a) style of corker: hand or floor
b) diameter of corks: #8 (usually 22mm diameter), #9 (23 or 24mm
diameter).

Based on customer feedback (NOT personal experience), if you have a
hand corker and 24 mm #9's give up now.

If you have a floor corker, the corks probably don't matter.

Oh, and on the topic of boiling corks....the old books say to do this.
And they are correct, but ONLY for solid corks. The corks that are
bonded together chips of cork should not be boiled.

Steve
Steve I have used a plastic plunger corker for over 20 years with my #
9 corks with no problem. Just place the cork in the corker and place it
on top of the bottle 3 quick slaps withthe palm of my had and the cork
is seated. I have use a floor coker before and they are nice but an
unnecessary expense for a beginer.

On 4/5/2006 4:27 PM, fasteddy999 wrote:
[thread snipped]

Steve I have used a plastic plunger corker for over 20 years with my #
9 corks with no problem. Just place the cork in the corker and place it
on top of the bottle 3 quick slaps withthe palm of my had and the cork
is seated. I have use a floor coker before and they are nice but an
unnecessary expense for a beginer.

Fasteddy999,

I'm not sure what a plastic plunger corker is, but as a beginner I
didn't have a corker, and I have nothing but praise for my Italian floor
corker and the utility it has brought to my wine making efforts. I wish
I had bought the corker years prior, and I would recommend to any wine
making beginner that they acquire one just as soon as they decide that
this is a hobby which they will continue to pursue. At about $100 (US)
the floor corker is priced right at the cost of a premium wine kit, and
it is worth every cent.


Cheers,
Ken Taborek

fasteddy999 wrote:
Steve I have used a plastic plunger corker for over 20 years with my #
9 corks with no problem. Just place the cork in the corker and place it
on top of the bottle 3 quick slaps withthe palm of my had and the cork
is seated. I have use a floor coker before and they are nice but an
unnecessary expense for a beginer.

I also use 9s with a hand corker. I use a rubber mallet to finish
driving them in.

Never had a broken bottle (it does not take much force to finish the
corks off), and I am not concerned that I would break one.

I used 9s the other day with a new floor corker. I tired it with an empty
bottle at first and no problem.

However when actually bottling the wine the corks were only going halfway in
on 15 of 30 bottle of Zin that I had. I couldn't figure out why other than
maybe the inch of air that was left was causing pressure that wasn't present
in the empty bottle.

Like you I finished them off with a rubber mallet and thinking about down
sizing to a #8 next time.

Droopy wrote:


I also use 9s with a hand corker. I use a rubber mallet to finish
driving them in.

Never had a broken bottle (it does not take much force to finish the
corks off), and I am not concerned that I would break one.

On 5 Apr 2006 13:27:04 -0700, "fasteddy999"
wrote:

Steve I have used a plastic plunger corker for over 20 years with my #
9 corks with no problem. Just place the cork in the corker and place it
on top of the bottle 3 quick slaps withthe palm of my had and the cork
is seated. I have use a floor coker before and they are nice but an
unnecessary expense for a beginer.

Fasteddy:

Everybody has different experiences. Let me explain it better.

I run a store and have bought various #9 corks. Some are 24mm in
diameter, others are 23mm. I know that doesn't sound like much.
However, the store has a compressed air driven corker. You can EASILY
tell the difference between the 24mm and 23mm #9s. The machine easily
inserts the 23mm's and strains with the 24mms.

CUSTOMER FEEDBACK from those using hand corkers is that the 24mm corks
are much more difficult than the 23mm corks. Those using floor
corkers doen't notice any difference.

So Fasteddy, if you're not having problems maybe you've been using the
23's. Or maybe the slipperiness of the plastic corker negates the
extra mm.

Steve

The good inexpensive hand corker is made by Ferrari and is called the
Gilda. It compresses the cork before inserting it with an iris just
like a floor corker. If you hunt around for about $15- $20 more US you
can get a Portuguese floor corker, it's well worth it.

You cant do synthetics with any sort of hand corker unless you are
Man-Mountaindeen or Joe Magerac; the Portuguese can do either.

Boiling corks is a bad idea as others have said. I spritz with a 1%
sulfite solution and drain, it's more for lubrication than anything
else. I never use a bag of 1000 at one time so I feel it's cheap
insurance. I just load up a funnel with a screen and place it in a
bottle or flask to hold it up and use them after spritzing. I do the
same thing with synthetics or naturals, I use both. The naturals get a
warm rinse like Tom said, then I spritz with to SO2.

Joe

I live near Presque Isle winery, and after speaking with owner Doug
Moorehead decided to drop the best 48 bucks (USD) on a portugese floor
corker. Doug uses almagamated corks at his winery almost exclusively
now, it is a lower grade cork, filled with cork dust and finished with
a very fine skin of plastic. He sells these corks that are pre-rinsed
with sulfite solution. All you need to do is dip them in a wee bit of
warm water as rinse and lube and bang, corked bottles.

Here is a little pictoral essay of the Portugese floor corker in
action.

Here you will notice the floor corker in full picture with an Ezra
Brooks bourbon bottle loaded, mind you i used this bottle as example
because the neck of the Ezra bottle is smaller than a standard wine
bottle.

http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/143/corker17re.jpg

Here is the cork pre-compressed

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2241/corker22jo.jpg

Here is a compressed cork, now from here you need a swift plunge on
the cork or it will be failed. The effort is more to compress the
cork than to plunge it into the neck. The reason for this is because
of the leverage you get on the handle and the angle. With one
sweeping motion you get the entire process done.

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/4891/corker36mq.jpg


Here is a pic of the finished product. Not an ezra bottle, but the
result is exactly the same. Just for notes, this is a bottle of 2004
blackberry.


http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5937/corked6ba.jpg


Again, I was exclusively screw-top hoss until I got the floor corker,
now bottling is a breeze.


On 6 Apr 2006 09:26:05 -0700, "Joe Sallustio"
wrote:

The good inexpensive hand corker is made by Ferrari and is called the
Gilda. It compresses the cork before inserting it with an iris just
like a floor corker. If you hunt around for about $15- $20 more US you
can get a Portuguese floor corker, it's well worth it.

You cant do synthetics with any sort of hand corker unless you are
Man-Mountaindeen or Joe Magerac; the Portuguese can do either.

Boiling corks is a bad idea as others have said. I spritz with a 1%
sulfite solution and drain, it's more for lubrication than anything
else. I never use a bag of 1000 at one time so I feel it's cheap
insurance. I just load up a funnel with a screen and place it in a
bottle or flask to hold it up and use them after spritzing. I do the
same thing with synthetics or naturals, I use both. The naturals get a
warm rinse like Tom said, then I spritz with to SO2.

Joe

Hoss,

Nice pictorial description of how your corker works!
Your corker looks almost identical to mine, from the fire engine red
color, to the flanges on the legs for mounting to the floor. Except
your corker appears to have a plastic iris, where mine has a bronze
(brass?) iris. Mine is a few years old, and I wonder, if your iris is
plastic and your corker newer, if this is a recent change to the design.


Cheers,
Ken Taborek




On 4/11/2006 3:22 PM, Hoss wrote:
I live near Presque Isle winery, and after speaking with owner Doug
Moorehead decided to drop the best 48 bucks (USD) on a portugese floor
corker. Doug uses almagamated corks at his winery almost exclusively
now, it is a lower grade cork, filled with cork dust and finished with
a very fine skin of plastic. He sells these corks that are pre-rinsed
with sulfite solution. All you need to do is dip them in a wee bit of
warm water as rinse and lube and bang, corked bottles.

Here is a little pictoral essay of the Portugese floor corker in
action.

Here you will notice the floor corker in full picture with an Ezra
Brooks bourbon bottle loaded, mind you i used this bottle as example
because the neck of the Ezra bottle is smaller than a standard wine
bottle.

http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/143/corker17re.jpg

Here is the cork pre-compressed

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/2241/corker22jo.jpg

Here is a compressed cork, now from here you need a swift plunge on
the cork or it will be failed. The effort is more to compress the
cork than to plunge it into the neck. The reason for this is because
of the leverage you get on the handle and the angle. With one
sweeping motion you get the entire process done.

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/4891/corker36mq.jpg


Here is a pic of the finished product. Not an ezra bottle, but the
result is exactly the same. Just for notes, this is a bottle of 2004
blackberry.


http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5937/corked6ba.jpg


Again, I was exclusively screw-top hoss until I got the floor corker,
now bottling is a breeze.


On 6 Apr 2006 09:26:05 -0700, "Joe Sallustio"
wrote:


The good inexpensive hand corker is made by Ferrari and is called the
Gilda. It compresses the cork before inserting it with an iris just
like a floor corker. If you hunt around for about $15- $20 more US you
can get a Portuguese floor corker, it's well worth it.

You cant do synthetics with any sort of hand corker unless you are
Man-Mountaindeen or Joe Magerac; the Portuguese can do either.

Boiling corks is a bad idea as others have said. I spritz with a 1%
sulfite solution and drain, it's more for lubrication than anything
else. I never use a bag of 1000 at one time so I feel it's cheap
insurance. I just load up a funnel with a screen and place it in a
bottle or flask to hold it up and use them after spritzing. I do the
same thing with synthetics or naturals, I use both. The naturals get a
warm rinse like Tom said, then I spritz with to SO2.

Joe

mail box wrote:
Hoss,

Nice pictorial description of how your corker works!
Your corker looks almost identical to mine, from the fire engine red
color, to the flanges on the legs for mounting to the floor. Except
your corker appears to have a plastic iris, where mine has a bronze
(brass?) iris. Mine is a few years old, and I wonder, if your iris is
plastic and your corker newer, if this is a recent change to the design.


Cheers,
Ken Taborek


No, they're 2 different models - the plastic iris is a Portuguese
corker, the brass one Italian. The Italian is more expensive and I
believe it can also handle 3L bottles, but I've also see reports that
it can damage plastic corks. I've got the Portuguese model and am very
happy with it.

Pp