A bottling discovery

Hi guys, I thought I oughtta share something I learned. When I started out to make my first batch of cider, I had a couple empty Martinelli's Sparkling Cider bottles in the recycling bin. I realized that these were real, live, bona-fide crown-cappable champagne bottles, so I bought a bunch more and pressed them into service.

A bottling accident resulted in several of these becoming charged with so much pressure that they couldn't be opened without losing contents. Then I tried my plan to pasteurize them in the dishwasher with the "sterilize" setting enabled -- that's 160 degrees for 9 minutes -- and they came out with the bottle caps DOMED.

Can you imagine how much pressure it takes to push a crown cap into a dome on the bottle? Anyway, that clinched it. These Martinelli's bottles are hell-for-stout real-thing champagne glass.

And the best part is, if you shop carefully you can get 'em (full of very yummy sparkling apple juice) for less than you'd pay for a case of empty champagnes. I get mine at Winco for $1.78 apiece; I've seen 'em for sale for $1.50 during the holiday season. That works out to a little over 20 bucks a case.

Biggest problem I've had with 'em is, my last batch was about 10 percent. Three quarters of a liter is way too much 10-percent hooch to drink all at once, unless a feller's making a night of it!

--Finn

Cheers!

--Finn

my barleywine domed its caps as well - i carefully vented 4 times over 6 months
until the pressure was ok.

I'm not sure if it's the same brand, but I've got a bunch of sparkling cider bottles that I've bought for ~$2 each that I'm planning to use for my Belgian. I may not take it up to a full 4 volumes CO2, just 'cause I'm not sure how much pressure they ARE designed to hold, but they're definately cooler than the standard 12oz beer bottle.

Are you bottles brown or green? Something tells me that mine are green, which just means I'll have to keep them in the dark (green might as well be clear as far as skunking is concerned).

They're good, too, for apfelwein.

Yeah, but then you have to buy that martinelli's junk to get 'em.

Evan! said:

Yeah, but then you have to buy that martinelli's junk to get 'em.

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So throw it into the carboy with some Lalvin 1114 and wait a week! I guarandamtee a 700-percent improvement in bev'ridge quality!

the_bird said:

Are you bottles brown or green? Something tells me that mine are green, which just means I'll have to keep them in the dark (green might as well be clear as far as skunking is concerned).

They're good, too, for apfelwein.

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Green, unfortunately (and as a longtime St. Pauli Girl drinker, I know exactly what you're talkin' about.) But, it's not so hard to keep 'em in the dark.

Note: Martinelli bottles do not work with the Emily Wing Capper.

I already tried. The size is wrong.

Evan! said:

Yeah, but then you have to buy that martinelli's junk to get 'em.

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Holy crap. I've never tasted any apple related beverage as tasty as martinellis'. How could you call it junk??!!!! Unless you have never tasted it as you are in VA and it's made in CA