I have recently been trying my hand at making proper champagne but have
hit a problem with getting it into the bottle. The method I'm
experimenting with has been to carryout the secondary fermentation in a
stainless steel pressure vessel (11 litre cornelius keg) - pressure
built up to 2.5bar (35-40 psi) & held for 2 months at room temperature.
Keg then placed in fridge for 2 weeks @ 0°C/32°F, pressure reduced
noticeably to about 1bar (14psi). So far so good (I think) !!
However when I try to fill the bottles (chilled bottles & long filling
pipe reaching to bottom of bottle) what I get is a great tasting, very
clear wine but with very little 'champagne sparkle' & a persistant head
that would do credit to a pint of lager !!!!!!!!!
I suspect the problem may be a too high dispensing pressure remaining
in the barrel but wonder if anyone else in the group can suggest what I
may be doing wrong. Should I reduce the keg pressure to zero just
before bottling and use something like a foot pump to provide a minimal
pressure to shift the wine from keg to bottle ????
I'd be quite happy to leave the wine in the cornelius keg but when it
comes to romantic seduction situations an 11 litre stainless steel
container dips right out c.f. a proper chanpagne bottle ...... or so
I'm told !!

Dick,
I am a little confused by your terminology, was the secondary
fermentation an actual re-ferment of sugar or is the pressure the
result of added CO2?

Carbonated wine (a still wine that has been pressurized by CO2)
doesn't come close to tasting like a good sparkler. You need the
interaction of the lees breaking down over time in addition to the high
pressure to round it all out. 2 months is not a long time.

If self carbonated what it sounds like you are actually making is a
petillant wine with the Charmat method if I follow you. I think you
have several things working against you. If this is a counter-pressure
system that is great, but that pressure is too low to start for a
sparkler.

I go for 90 PSIG and ferment in the bottle. All true sparklers are
made that way. (Use the correct bottles and measure the sugar
carefully, it's a hand grenade.) I freeze the neck to disgorge, it's
not as hard as it sounds. (I did screw up the first ten bottles or so
but you develop a technique with experience, you get to drink your
mistakes.) I still lose some pressure but I have a lot more to start
with. If you want the bubbles to be fine and last quite a long time
you need both the pressure and some time on the lees, it really softens
to wine. You can always just start this one over if you want to try
that, It's just sugar and a packet of yeast..

Trying to get it from the keg to the bottle is a very difficult
proposition. I'm not sure how you will be able to keep the pressure up
and really have no good advice, sorry. You have already done the
things i would suggest. That said petillant wines are great and rarely
made or sourced into the USA. If you like this one the way it is,
maybe just make another batch the old fashioned way. I am certain you
will like the results. I have a least 100 bottles of sparkling Seyval
in process at one time or another and it is well liked.

Joe

.... The method I'm
> experimenting with has been to carryout the secondary fermentation in a
> stainless steel pressure vessel (11 litre cornelius keg) - pressure
> built up to 2.5bar (35-40 psi) & held for 2 months at room temperature.
> Keg then placed in fridge for 2 weeks @ 0°C/32°F, pressure reduced
> noticeably to about 1bar (14psi).

> I go for 90 PSIG and ferment in the bottle. All true sparklers are
> made that way. (Use the correct bottles and measure the sugar
> carefully, it's a hand grenade.) I freeze the neck to disgorge, it's
> not as hard as it sounds. (I did screw up the first ten bottles or so
> but you develop a technique with experience, you get to drink your
> mistakes.)

Any chance of elaborating on your disgorge technique? I was
hoping to make 30 bottles of sparkling elderflower this year, but
illness prevented me from picking. I'm thinking of getting a 1 gallon
white kit in and sparkling it as practice soon. The disgorging is
worrying me, I have visions of sparkling wine spraying everywhere.

alien wrote:
> > I go for 90 PSIG and ferment in the bottle. All true sparklers are
> > made that way. (Use the correct bottles and measure the sugar
> > carefully, it's a hand grenade.) I freeze the neck to disgorge, it's
> > not as hard as it sounds. (I did screw up the first ten bottles or so
> > but you develop a technique with experience, you get to drink your
> > mistakes.)
>
> Any chance of elaborating on your disgorge technique? I was
> hoping to make 30 bottles of sparkling elderflower this year, but
> illness prevented me from picking. I'm thinking of getting a 1 gallon
> white kit in and sparkling it as practice soon. The disgorging is
> worrying me, I have visions of sparkling wine spraying everywhere.
The technique I'm using is one based on 'Making Sparkling Wine' Restall
& Hobbs published here in UK. I diluted some concentrated wine juice to
2 gals & adjusted SG to 1.070 with sugar. Acidity adjusted to 5ppm
H2SO4 using tartaric/malic acid mixture & whole lot fermented out to
dryness using a champagne yeast. Cleared using combination of time &
finings - result was a very clear, dry white white SG 0.996. SG then
adjusted to 1.001 by adding 60gm sugar & whole lot put in a stainless
steel cornelius pressure keg for the secondary fermentation. Pressure
built up to about 2.7bar over the next couple of weeks until
fermentation completed. Keg allowed to stand at room temp & this
pressure for 8-9 weeks followed by 2 weeks @ 0°C to finish off
clearing. What I'm trying to do now is get the wine in the keg into
bottles, hence my question to the news group.
The whole reason for using this technique was to avoid having to
disgorge and what I eventually got into my trial bottles was very, very
clear but having read Joe's comments about disgorgement maybe it's not
as difficult as it sounds !
Sitting here reading your comments & thinking it struck me that if I'm
dispensing some thing like a beer then I shouldn't be suprised if I get
something looking like a beer !!! Think I'll drop the keg temperature a
low as I can in the fridge, open up the keg and use an old fashioned
siphon tube.
Thanks for your thoughts.

> > Any chance of elaborating on your disgorge technique?

> Sitting here reading your comments & thinking it struck me that if I'm
> dispensing some thing like a beer then I shouldn't be surprised if I get
> something looking like a beer !!! Think I'll drop the keg temperature a
> low as I can in the fridge, open up the keg and use an old fashioned
> siphon tube.
> Thanks for your thoughts.

Your method did emulate the bulk transfer method or Charmat; they
pressurize the bottles also to avoid losing pressure in the transfer
and use a higher initial pressure.

I start with a similar dry base wine and add 18 g table sugar/ bottle
to the batch I am making, usually a 5 gallon carboy. I add hydrated
yeast to that and as soon as I'm sure it's fermenting I bottle,
stirring as I bottle. I fill the bottles to 1/2 to 3/4 inch full and
cap with a crown cap. I lay them on their sides in the wine cellar and
forget about them for a few years, (I should rotate them every 6 months
but it rarely happens.)

The traditional method of disgorging is very easy. The trick is to get
all the yeast and sediment into the neck and freeze it. I use a
riddling rack and that takes a month of turning the bottle about 1/5 of
a turn and tilting the point down a little each day. I have one so I
use it. It's harder to make than you might think, so another method
follows.

You can get just about the same effect by shaking up the bottle (I wear
a face shield just in case) and placing it into the empty wine bottle
box. Pick it up an inch and drop it back in each day fro a week or so.

Once the sediment is all in the neck, make some room in the freezer and
place 2 bottles in sitting straight up on the neck. 30 -45 minutes
later you will see the neck freeze a plug; once it's about 2 inches or
5 cm long, pull it out of the freezer, rinse the neck quickly with warm
water (neck still down) and take it outside with an uncapper in your
hand. The whole time this bottle is pointed mostly straight down.

Turn the bottle up pointed away from you and pop off the cap in one
motion; as soon as the cap is off and plug clear place your thumb over
the opening. Ensure there is no debris from the plug on the lip and
cork or recap. The plug of ice cleans off the sides of the bottle on
it's way out, it's an elegant solution. (Thank the widow Clicquot; if
her husband hadn't died we may still be drinking cloudy wine...) A
clean thumb is a very good idea...

If you want it sweet this is when you add a sugar syrup. I make up
some fruity white wine and sugar at about a 50/50 mix ahead of time.
Tilt the bottle and let it slide down the side, don't drip it in. One
ounce or 30 ml of this makes a pretty sweet sparkler, you can certainly
go higher though. Just make sure you have room in the bottle. Some
add a touch of sulfite or brandy here too as a preservative.

You can top with still wine if you lose too much the first few times
but after about 5 bottles you will develop a technique that works
well. It really is easier than it sounds. It's all common sense stuff.


You need to close this bottle as soon as possible so you need to have
everything ready, I usually uncap, make sure the inside of the neck is
clean and use one of those spring loaded champagne re-stoppers. Since
you are working near 0 F you don't lose much pressure at all. I'm
still using plastic corks so I need to whack them in with a rubber
mallet, then I wire down. Some wine makers are just using crown caps
again, that woks too.

I follow the technique outlined in "Modern Winemaking" by Phillip
Jackisch. I think it's a very under rated reference book for
winemakers. I know Lum has a very good section on sparkling winemaking
too and if you can read this post you have access to his book.

Hope this helped, if anything is a little fuzzy I will keep an eye on
this thread and try to answer.

Joe

Joe,
Do I take it you're crown topping proper sized champagne bottles, if so
what size crown top do you use ? I wondered about this years ago but
gave up the idea after finding the beer bottle size top too small for
the job.

Dick

Hi Dick,
There are two sizes, I don't know what they are really called but I
call them 'North American' and 'European'. I pitch the European
bottles because I cant use them. The European one is bigger than the
ones I use. The North American ones fit beer bottles; I think they are
26 mm, I think the European is 29 mm. My capper is made for the 26 mm
and is at least 50 years old.

I bought new bottles off of Presque Isle Wine Cellars and get the caps
there too. They sell a '10 atmosphere' bottle, that is the one I use.
I have heard it can be an issue to reuse sparkling wine bottles but I
do. The only qualification I can give is that if you want to stack
them you need to use the same shape and shapes vary all over the place.


Joe


dick at ravelrig wrote:
> Joe,
> Do I take it you're crown topping proper sized champagne bottles, if so
> what size crown top do you use ? I wondered about this years ago but
> gave up the idea after finding the beer bottle size top too small for
> the job.
>
> Dick

>> Do I take it you're crown topping proper sized champagne bottles, if so
>> what size crown top do you use ? I wondered about this years ago but
....
> ... The North American ones fit beer bottles; I think they are
> 26 mm, I think the European is 29 mm. My capper is made for the 26 mm
> and is at least 50 years old.

One thing, Champagne bottles have a thicker neck than a beer bottle,
so most "wing" bottle cappers won't work - they're fixed at the beer
bottle size. I've seen one brand with a swing-out adjustment for the
neck size that will work. Bench cappers will always work because they
don't touch the neck at all.

So if you're going to buy a capper for this, be sure it will work on a
Champagne bottle first... (like he said above, the caps are the same
size on the "North American" bottles.

Derric wrote:
> >> Do I take it you're crown topping proper sized champagne bottles, if so
> >> what size crown top do you use ? I wondered about this years ago but
> ...
> > ... The North American ones fit beer bottles; I think they are
> > 26 mm, I think the European is 29 mm. My capper is made for the 26 mm
> > and is at least 50 years old.
>
> One thing, Champagne bottles have a thicker neck than a beer bottle,
> so most "wing" bottle cappers won't work - they're fixed at the beer
> bottle size. I've seen one brand with a swing-out adjustment for the
> neck size that will work. Bench cappers will always work because they
> don't touch the neck at all.
>
> So if you're going to buy a capper for this, be sure it will work on a
> Champagne bottle first... (like he said above, the caps are the same
> size on the "North American" bottles.
Thanks for the info, I standardized on swing top bottles for my beer
years ago so had no call to look at crown tops. So many new toys to
play with .... it's enough to drive you to drink !! Think I'll go and
have a good look at some home brewshop catalogues to see what they can
come up with.

The crowns are indeed 26 and 29mm. I was very fortunate that my floor corker
included a capping attachment that interchanges two bell-shaped items to
take care of either cap size. The corker came from St. Pat's about 4 years
ago.

"Derric" > wrote in message
...
>
>>> Do I take it you're crown topping proper sized champagne bottles, if so
>>> what size crown top do you use ? I wondered about this years ago but
> ...
>> ... The North American ones fit beer bottles; I think they are
>> 26 mm, I think the European is 29 mm. My capper is made for the 26 mm
>> and is at least 50 years old.
>
> One thing, Champagne bottles have a thicker neck than a beer bottle,
> so most "wing" bottle cappers won't work - they're fixed at the beer
> bottle size. I've seen one brand with a swing-out adjustment for the
> neck size that will work. Bench cappers will always work because they
> don't touch the neck at all.
>
> So if you're going to buy a capper for this, be sure it will work on a
> Champagne bottle first... (like he said above, the caps are the same
> size on the "North American" bottles.
>

Thought I'd just post an up-date on my original query about the problem
of getting champagne into those bottles. Sucess !! I simply put the
half cornelius keg, still under about 2bar pressure, back into the
fridge and turned the temp down as low as I could get it (1-2 deg below
freezing) & left the whole lot for a couple of weeks. Brought the keg
back out, relieved the pressure & simply siphoned the champagne into
very cold bottles. Getting the siphon running involved a couple of
mouthfulls of fizz but I forced myself to live with that, the trick
seems to be to work quickly, have the cold bottles handy & try not to
break the siphon action once it's established & running smoothly. All
corked, wired & looking beautifully clear ........ I drop a note to the
ng about what it tastes like when I crack the 1st bottle, should be at
least a year but suspect it'll probably be more like Xmas.