Well thank you for welcoming me, I understand it is not easy to answer a question that could be a safety issue, especially when you can't see the issue first hand.
I found your site when looking for a problem I have with a bottle of beet wine I made several years ago. I had rebottled it using an empty commercial wine bottle with cork closure. When I went to open it there was a hard, whitish plug under the end of the cork. I broke it up to remove it & a...