Death by Cork

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noodledancer77

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I brewed a robust porter the week before Thanksgiving. If i remember right, the initial gravity was around 1.070, a bit bigger than beers I have previously made. For giggles we decided to bottle a few of them in belgian bottles and 750's sealed with a wine cork and dipped in sealing wax. We bottled in mid-december about the week of the 13th. i have two observations.

1. this bigger beer took longer to bottle condition than i anticipated. my cousin thought it would be done in a week...my reading on this forum convinced me otherwise. We them after two weeks and a month and they were not done at either time.

2. i just noticed that the wax on top of one of the 750's had cracked two days ago, and today the cork has pushed out of the bottle about a quarter inch.

At this point, i'm treating this thing as a deadly weapon and it is under quarantine until i get around to drinking it on Friday. In the mean time, I'm gonna try making a makeshift cage out of bailing wire.

Just wanted to share my experiences with folks thinking of using wine corks in bottles for beer. In the future I'll invest in a floor corker and some belgian corks with cages. Bottoms up!
 
I was planning on using cork cages in any bottles I put beer into (and cork)...

I'm planning on making a braggot starting in a few months. When that's ready, I plan on using some smaller champagne bottles, using cork cages (and real corks) in them. Basically, since this will be a 12-15% ABV brew, I think a 375ml bottle will be good for one person. I'll probably bottle up some in larger bottles too, for groups to enjoy (or for a few to enjoy with dinner)...

When my mead batches are set for bottling I might filter them, to ensure that no yeast remains in solution, to eliminate the risk of either bottle bombs, or for them to self-carbonate at some later time. From my understanding, since all the yeast will be filtered out, there won't be any need to use other stabilizers in the mead. Thus, keeping the ingredient list much shorter.
 
Interesting...I'm thinking of starting a gallon batch of mead. I'd like to start small to make sure I'm happy with the outcome before moving to a 5 gallon batch. I've got a friend locally that keeps bees and I'm working on trading the end product with him for an advance on the honey. let me know how it turns out.
 
Well, my blackberry melomel (3 gallon batch) won't be ready for another 6+ months (maybe longer)... I'm expecting the two traditional batches (3 and 5 gallon batches) to be ready after about 12-14 months (so sometime between November and January/February)... My one gallon mocha madness mead batch could be done about that same time, but more likely for summer 2012...
 
I was planning on using cork cages in any bottles I put beer into (and cork)...

+1, regular wine corks aren't meant to handle internal pressure. Nor, for that matter, are regular wine bottles. If you want to cork a carbonated beverage, use the thicker champagne or Belgian bottles and use champagne/Belgian corks with cages. Otherwise you are just asking for trouble.
 
I recommend spending the extra and getting the belgian corks and cages. I have a friend that used champagne corks and we needed pliars or a wine cork remover to get the thing out.
 
+1, regular wine corks aren't meant to handle internal pressure. Nor, for that matter, are regular wine bottles. If you want to cork a carbonated beverage, use the thicker champagne or Belgian bottles and use champagne/Belgian corks with cages. Otherwise you are just asking for trouble.

Any thoughts on where I could get 375ml sized bottles that can handle some carbonation and be corked? I have an English BarleyWine that is ready to be bottled (it started off life as a porter, but has evolved/mutated into a BW :D)...

I would like to get the bottles, corks and cages (will need a corker too) this week (ASAP) so that they have some time to carbonate (what little they will get). Looking at 1.3-1.5 CO2 volumes for the BarleyWine so I just need bottles that can handle that level safely.

I want the 375ml size more due to how bloody strong the BW is. I think that a 375ml bottle will be a good single serving size, with anything through 750ml being shared with 2-3 people. A 1L bottle would need to be shared with at least 4 people so that you don't get knocked horizontal too fast. Really good stuff, tastes really nice, but has the kick to make you respect it (or fear it)... Hope to have a name for it before I bottle, so that I can label them. :D
 
There are 375ml champagne bottles online at some wine vendors. There are also 187ml bottles available as well. I think they accept plain crown caps as well.

Also I suggest the belgian corks and not champagne corks even when bottling in champagne bottles. The belgian corks are slightly smaller and there for easier to remove. We have to remember that champagne is super carbonated compared to beers so the bottle pretty much pushes the cork out for you.
 
Do you happen to know of which vendors/sites have the 375ml sized bottles in amber/brown or (even better) black?? I'm not about to use glass that has the chance to skunk the BarleyWine.

I don't have a capper and intend to never get one... I've been using Grolsch style bottles so far, and really like them. Pop one of those open and tell me that there's not a decent amount of pressure under there. You get it just a little bit released (the wire holding the top down) and the sucker shoots off pretty fast (luckily, it's attached to the bottle)... That's with carbonating in the lower 1/2 of the style's range too. You can here it pop, sounds almost like a cork coming out of a champagne bottle. :D
 
I bottle in grolsh bottles a lot and love them too. The 375ml champagne bottles I have not found in amber/brown or black except for the ones that Russian River and Port Brewing use. All the rest are green. Just bottle in the green if you want that size and that presentation but keep them in the box the bottles came in if you buy them.
 
Update: We opened the bottle that I referred to in the initial post. It seemed to be a long way from actually expelling the cork. It still took quite a bit of pressure to get the cork from the bottle. Have your glass ready tho, cause this thing over flowed upon opening. i reckon this is not ideal as we had no plans of spraying anyone with the beer as you might a loaded champaigne bottle. FYI, we bottled in beer bottles and sealed them with wine corks. We did not use wine bottles and would not due to the concern that they would not hold the pressures required.
 
Learn saber service, great party trick!

We weren't able to graduate from wine and beer at the culinary without being able to demonstrate this properly.

(this is dangerous, you probably shouldn't really do this, especially if you like to sue people)
 
1. this bigger beer took longer to bottle condition than i anticipated. my cousin thought it would be done in a week...my reading on this forum convinced me otherwise. We them after two weeks and a month and they were not done at either time.

lol @ your cousin

3 weeks @ 70 is the general rule of thumb that gets thrown around here a lot, but not for a beer as big as your porter.

3 weeks @ 70F minimum is a rule of thumb for bottle CARBONATION. Bottle CONDITIONING is something else alltogether and can take much longer than carbonation.
 
No, the 750s I refer to are champagne type bottles. Actually, they are the bottles that Boulevard Brewing Company uses for the beers that they offer in 750ml bottles. Rye on Rye, and long strange tripel are examples.
 
I bottled a sparkling mead in Champagne bottles with plastic corks and wire cages... some clear bottles took regular caps so I capped those. Figured carbonation for 3.5 vols and let er rip.

I went to open a corked bottle New Years eve, as soon as I loosened the cage the thing blew and nearly put a hole in my in-laws ceiling... The bottle was ice cold, no foam over, just a ton of pressure... so be careful :)
 
Update: We opened the bottle that I referred to in the initial post. It seemed to be a long way from actually expelling the cork. It still took quite a bit of pressure to get the cork from the bottle. Have your glass ready tho, cause this thing over flowed upon opening. i reckon this is not ideal as we had no plans of spraying anyone with the beer as you might a loaded champaigne bottle. FYI, we bottled in beer bottles and sealed them with wine corks. We did not use wine bottles and would not due to the concern that they would not hold the pressures required.

Wine corks aren't held in by the sealing wax- you should definitely have cages!
 
Wine corks aren't held in by the sealing wax- you should definitely have cages!

Absolutely. This was intended as an experiment knowing full well the danger involved. The wax was used as an attempt to keep gases from passing thru the cork. It also makes a nice presentation. Of course, a pretty sealed wax bottle doesn't go very far when you've got cork embedded in your forehead.
 
Learn saber service, great party trick!

We weren't able to graduate from wine and beer at the culinary without being able to demonstrate this properly.

(this is dangerous, you probably shouldn't really do this, especially if you like to sue people)

Saber service?
 
Absolutely. This was intended as an experiment knowing full well the danger involved. The wax was used as an attempt to keep gases from passing thru the cork. It also makes a nice presentation. Of course, a pretty sealed wax bottle doesn't go very far when you've got cork embedded in your forehead.

It actually goes even further, as long as the cork is in someone else's forehead. :D

I'm thinking that the Belgian bottles would be a very good option for any mead that has a risk of carbonating... Put some nice cages over the cork (make sure you leave enough outside the bottle neck) and you'll be safe.
 
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