Wine bottles

Does anyone use wine bottles ? If so what closure are you guy using,Synthetic or cork ?

I use #9 corks.

#9's here too. There are quite a few different grades of cork to choose from if you are interested enought to read about them. The # refers to the diameter of the cork, and they can be made from a few different materials, ranging from the synthetic, to bits of other cork, to a full piece straight from the tree.

I used to use the agglomerated corks (bits of cork glued together with food grade glue). They work fine, but they aren't the prettiest. I've since switched to the twin disk corks, that are usually heat stamped with a design that can be seen through the bottle's neck. It's a three piece cork; two disks made of a single piece of cork, with agglomerated cork sandwiched between them.

Natural cork all the way for me.

I have a unlimited supply of wine bottles and synthetic corks. Any other problems with corkin beer?

Oh, I wasn't under the impression you wanted to use them to bottle beer . We both probably thought you were asking about bottling wine. Beer in wine bottles will not work! They just aren't designed for it. The pressure will probably push the corks out if you're lucky, shatter the bottles if you're not.

What's the difference in wine bottles and corks, than bottles and caps? Sorry for the newby questions...

Wine bottles aren't really designed to hold much pressure, beer bottles are. The cork only has friction to hold the wine in the bottle, whereas the cap of a beer bottle has a mechanical clamp on the bottle. Don't confuse a wine bottle with a Champagne bottle either; a Champagne bottle is much thicker. To make it more confusing, there are some wine bottles that can be capped, just like a beer bottle, but it's only for the seal, not the pressure.

I've had some things carbonate while in wine bottles, on accident. I had to throw all of my bottles in the fridge, and drink them as fast as I could! The corks were being pushed out of the top by the pressure differential. The last one I drank had shoved the cork out nearly half way!