Capping with the Italian Floor Corker Question

So I am on the verge of buying an Italian Floor Corker off of CL and have a question about the capping function. It is my understanding that the adaptor makes it possible to cap champagne bottles which use 29mm caps but I was wondering if I could use a capping bell that would cap 30mm caps (for 12oz bottles).

I'm assuming that the 29mm capping bell won't work with the 12oz bottles but that may be incorrect. I want to buy this thing because I will be making more wine soon and I want to be able to get rid of my bench capper so I don't have to have both. Is it possible to take the bell off of a wing capper and screw it into the Italian floor corker to bottle 12oz bottles (or just buy a 30mm bell for it)?

Thanks for your help and let me know if any of my assumptions or info is incorrect.

I have a floor corker that I use to bottle both 12oz and champagne bottles. The standard capper was for 12oz bottles, and I think it's 26mm, not 30mm as you mention. I bought an additional bell for the 29mm caps needed for the champagne bottles. It threads on in place of the standard bell. I can't help with the wing capper to floor corker interchangeability question.

I don't know about floor cappers but my regular butterfly capper caps both beer and champagne bottles and I use the same caps on both bottles. Kinda curious about your guys claims of a different cap for champagne bottles?

prandlesc said:

I have a floor corker that I use to bottle both 12oz and champagne bottles. The standard capper was for 12oz bottles, and I think it's 26mm, not 30mm as you mention. I bought an additional bell for the 29mm caps needed for the champagne bottles. It threads on in place of the standard bell. I can't help with the wing capper to floor corker interchangeability question.

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So the Italian floor corker already comes equipped to cap regular 12 oz bottles? I wouldn't need to exchange any bells if it already had that capability

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SmokeyMcBong said:

I don't know about floor cappers but my regular butterfly capper caps both beer and champagne bottles and I use the same caps on both bottles. Kinda curious about your guys claims of a different cap for champagne bottles?

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I think that the caps are different from what I have read but I don't really know. The places i have heard mention the capping adaptor for this thing say it is to cap champagne bottles.

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so I did some more reading and came up with, i think, the answer on the champagne bottles. It seems that domestic (North American) sparkling wine bottles and imported (at least French) champagne have different sized caps.

If thats the case, your floor capper will cap beer and North American sparkling wine bottles. But not real champagne bottles and probably not most European sparkling wine bottles without the extra adaptor.

uncleben113 said:

So the Italian floor corker already comes equipped to cap regular 12 oz bottles? I wouldn't need to exchange any bells if it already had that capability

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The floor corker did not come with a capper, it's an optional accessory. But the standard capper accessory has a bell that works with 12oz bottles. You'll need a 29mm bell for champagne bottles in addition to the capper attachment. Morebeer has both together for $20. http://morebeer.com/view_product/9728//Capper_Attachment_for_Italian_Floor_Corker

SmokeyMcBong said:

so I did some more reading and came up with, i think, the answer on the champagne bottles. It seems that domestic (North American) sparkling wine bottles and imported (at least French) champagne have different sized caps.

If thats the case, your floor capper will cap beer and North American sparkling wine bottles. But not real champagne bottles and probably not most European sparkling wine bottles without the extra adaptor.

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Martinelli's sparkling cider uses small caps, too. I haven't seen any sparking wine in small cap bottles - but maybe I haven't bought any domestic champagne in a while. But it's pretty easy to tell, just compare the tops of the bottles in question up to a 12oz bottle - you'll notice the size difference.

SmokeyMcBong said:

so I did some more reading and came up with, i think, the answer on the champagne bottles. It seems that domestic (North American) sparkling wine bottles and imported (at least French) champagne have different sized caps.

If thats the case, your floor capper will cap beer and North American sparkling wine bottles. But not real champagne bottles and probably not most European sparkling wine bottles without the extra adaptor.

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I talked to Austin Homebrew yesterday and they basically told me the same thing. They use different sized caps and thus capping bells. Thanks for the info

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prandlesc said:

The floor corker did not come with a capper, it's an optional accessory. But the standard capper accessory has a bell that works with 12oz bottles. You'll need a 29mm bell for champagne bottles in addition to the capper attachment. Morebeer has both together for $20. http://morebeer.com/view_product/9728//Capper_Attachment_for_Italian_Floor_Corker

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This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. Thank you! Its amazing how hard it is to find info on this. My LHBS had no idea about how the attachments worked or about the different sized caps.

Thank you good sir

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I use my IFC for corking wine and meads and for that it is great, but I would hate to use it to bottle beer. I've thought about selling my bench capper so that I could consolidate equipment, but I think I would regret it.

Maybe someone that uses the capper will comment and say otherwise.

BBBF said:

I use my IFC for corking wine and meads and for that it is great, but I would hate to use it to bottle beer. I've thought about selling my bench capper so that I could consolidate equipment, but I think I would regret it.

Maybe someone that uses the capper will comment and say otherwise.

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Why do you think you would hate it for bottling beer?

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I use my floor corker frequently, especially for the 29mm caps. I also have a handheld wing capper that I use occasionally, too. Most of my beer is kegged, and I often bottle a couple dozen bottles to take with me somewhere. The floor corker is great. I fill the bottles and place the loose cap on the foam, then set the bottles aside for a few minutes until all are filled. Then I use the floor corker to cap. It makes that type of production run quick and easy. And if I can talk my wife into helping, she can easily manage the floor corker when she struggles with the handheld capper.

uncleben113 said:

Why do you think you would hate it for bottling beer?

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Efficiency. The bench capper is on the table, so it's easy to grab an uncapped bottle, cap it and set it down on the other end of the table. The corker is on the floor, so you have to move from the table to the corker and then back to the table.

The bench capper was built for bottle caps, which do not require much force to attach. Therefore it has a small lever, which requires minimal movement. The corker was built to apply a lot of pressure to compress the corks. Therefore it has a large lever, which takes more effort to use.

Also, I occasionally fill a bottle from the tap and put a cap on it. It's a lot easier to drag my Colonna capper to the keggerator than it would be to drag the IFC.



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BBBF said:

Efficiency. The bench capper is on the table, so it's easy to grab an uncapped bottle, cap it and set it down on the other end of the table. The corker is on the floor, so you have to move from the table to the corker and then back to the table.

The bench capper was built for bottle caps, which do not require much force to attach. Therefore it has a small lever, which requires minimal movement. The corker was built to apply a lot of pressure to compress the corks. Therefore it has a large lever, which takes more effort to use.

Also, I occasionally fill a bottle from the tap and put a cap on it. It's a lot easier to drag my Colonna capper to the keggerator than it would be to drag the IFC.



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That makes a lot of sense. Well I'm going to try to buy this thing and see how I might like it for bottling. If I don't like it, then I'll just keep my bench capper.

uncleben113 said:

That makes a lot of sense. Well I'm going to try to buy this thing and see how I might like it for bottling. If I don't like it, then I'll just keep my bench capper.

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Let me know how it works out.

Will do. As soon as I get the corker and bell I am going to do some tests.

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So I finally bottled some beer and capped with my IFC. I only had to cap 4-5 beers and it was easy enough but I think if I were capping an entire batch, it would get old fast. It works well enough and functions the exact same way as my bench capper but the amount of movement to pull the lever is not all that practical and working halfway between the floor and table would get annoying (even though I still deal with this while corking). I think I'm going to just keep both my IFC and bench capper. I make plenty of wine and beer to justify keeping them both.