Oberon,

I've been making sparkling for several years and this is my non-scientific
method which has worked well for me.
Several friends use the "inverted bottle in the freezer" method but I find
that it takes too long to freeze the bottles.
First, I chill cases of inverted bottles in the refrigerator overnight.
When I am ready to degorge I make up the brine
solution with rock salt and ice(crushed works best). I use rock salt made
for making ice cream which I get at Wal-mart.
Five pounds costs a few bucks if I remember. I make up the brine solution
(following the directions on the rock salt)
in a small one gallon, plastic, insulated Coleman jug alternating 3 inch
layers of crushed ice and 1/2 inch layers of salt.
The key for me is to let the ice/salt mixture sit for about an hour and get
really cold before starting. During this hour I gather
the necessary supplies, sterilize the stoppers, etc. Then, one bottle is
shoved down into the ice/salt mixture and the neck
will freeze in about 3 minutes. I pull that bottle out when frozen, stick
another one in and while the second one is freezing
I rinse off the brine solution, degorge, pour in the dosage, and cap it.
That takes a few minutes and the second bottle is
ready to degorge. The whole process is a one man assembly line and I can
degorge a case in less than an hour.



"Oberon" > wrote in message
...
> Thanks for all the responses, I really appreciate all the facts and
> practical knowledge people have offered up. I've now made the attempt,
but
> like Doug I found that 40f champaign bottles immersed ~2 inches into a 20f
> brine solution (the coldest I could get the brine solution to go) for up
to
> 10 hours just don't freeze at all. On the other hand, I got a lot of
things
> done around the house after I figured out that the one hour freezing time
> listed in Morse's 'Making Mead' was a fantasy. :-/
>
> I've located a local supply house that sells a 10lb block of dry ice
> (~-100f) for just under $20US. Given that I hate making multiple trips, I
> spent half that amount on ice (I only needed to use half of it, but I had
no
> way of knowing that when I set out to the local Food King for ice) in my
> first attempt, so I consider the cost well within reason. I'm fairly
> confident that I can get the brine to drop a few more degrees using
portions
> of the dry ice block. And I spoke at length about the hazards of dry ice
to
> the shop worker who fielded my call, and feel fairly confident that I
won't
> be freezing off any limbs while working with this material. ;-)
>
> I'll take pains to perfect my disgorging gear before the next try, as I
> found that I could only use 12 of the 15 bottle holes in my rack, due to
the
> fact that my tray for resting the necks on doesn't have the surface area
to
> support all 15 bottles. So I live and learn in more than one way...
>
> Friday night / Saturday morning (in the cool evening/morning hours) I'll
> make my second foray into disgorgement. Wish me luck!
>
>
> --
> Cheers,
> Ken
>
>