Bottling with corks????

Has anyone ever bottled beer using wine bottles with corks? Is there an appropriate style that lends itself to this unorthodox bottling approach? Would the carbonation blow the cork out? If so, couldn't you use the same method used when corking champaignes and sparkling meads?

Just interested in knowing if anyone has tried this or knows of anyone who has.

It isn't that unorthodox. A lot of Belgian beer is bottled that way. You need a cage over the cork to hold it in like with champagne.

I've bottled many meads this way. Works like a champ.

Yep! A wire cage (called a muselet in france - useless fact for today everyone) and plastic champagne 'corks' (easy to sterilize AND re-use) work well in beer bottles that have enough 'base lip' to hold the cage. Be careful with the cages though - they don't last with all the twisting more than once or (at best) twice. They're an expensive way of showing off at home brew level but nice for a real special....

You can also cap champagne bottles....

Yep, like Cantillon and other lambics do...a crown cap right over the cork...

I'm not a big champagne drinker, but Matinelli's Sparlkling Cider bottles work great with regular bottle caps.

Don't use regular wine bottles, they're not made to take the pressure of a carbonated drink. BOOOM!

If you like "Real Ales", just don't add any priming sugar. And don't point those things at me, ok?

Lounge Lizard said:

You can also cap champagne bottles....

Click to expand...

:rockin: I never thought of that!!

On the other point . . . do the corks add a "flavor" to the beer? When I've bottled my meads, it seems like the cork dripped a bit of liquid into the mead as it was being speezed into the bottle. I always figured this may affect the flavor slightly . . . but my meads always taste good, so I don't know if it would adversely affect my beers.

I like the champagne bottle idea better, though. I just bottled a belgian "Chimay" style beer, and I wanted to do a few "special" bottles to keep around awhile and pull out on special occasions (ya know . . . for the drama) . To late for now, but next time I do a nice belgian . . . champagne bottles!!!

I guess that means I have to go get some champagne and drink it up, right?