Screw top Wine bottles

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

guscampag

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2008
Messages
135
Reaction score
14
Location
Waterville (Toledo) OH
Is there any good use for these things? More and more wineries are using them and I know I have a big pile. Some of them are nice thick bottles. Does anybody use these? Do you cork them or what. Just trying to decide whether to pitch them or keep them around. I actually have inadvertantly corked a few in the past without incident. Is this unsafe?
Thanks for any input.
 
I have 4 or 5 of them and have corked them without issue. I was nervous but I just compared them to the other bottles and the opening was the same size and the glass seemed to be the same thickness.
 
A friend of mine will sometimes reuse the screw cap too and the wines he gave me in them were fine. I guess as long as the cap makes a fairly tight seal again there will be not issues short term. Without carbonation it probably seals fairly well. Not sure about long term storage though.
 
I have a few that I use for short-term storage or odd amounts of wine left from a bottling that I plan on drinking right away. If you are worried about a seal you could cork them and put the cap on over it.
 
OP: I have used some Jones Soda bottles with corks, I don't trust them long term, but they're good short term for sure.

jgln, we are talking about corking a screw top bottle which is safe for short term. Using the original screw top cap is not safe to do. I would never trust reusing those caps.
 
OP: I have used some Jones Soda bottles with corks, I don't trust them long term, but they're good short term for sure.

jgln, we are talking about corking a screw top bottle which is safe for short term. Using the original screw top cap is not safe to do. I would never trust reusing those caps.

I know what you mean, they are just not meant for reuse, but after opening a bottle of wine with a screw cap I have never had one leak when laying them on their side in the refrigerator. The seal may not be as good as originally but is still pretty good. So as long as everything is clean and the use is short term I personally wouldn't worry too much about it. Again, with wine there is no pressure to work against the seal, all the pressure is to make the seal.
 
Google Stelvin and/or Alcan. They are the most widely used producer of screw caps for wine bottles. Not sure about getting small quantities though.
 
I asked my local brew shop this same question not long ago - the advice I got was to be mindful of the hole size as some vary and could be larger than a standard bottle.

Basically I was told as long as I make sure the caps are properly cleaned then they can be reused without issue.

How many times they can be reused might be another question.
 
Google Stelvin and/or Alcan. They are the most widely used producer of screw caps for wine bottles. Not sure about getting small quantities though.

Even if you can source some, you'd need a serious spinner to apply them. The threads on these are created on the fly by the capper machine, just like an ROPP closure.
 
One thing to watch for if your corking screwtop bottles is bottle neck tapering. If you look at most corked wine bottles, the neck is fairly straight, thus fitting against the cork the entire length. Some screwtops have a tapered neck, meaning they widen out as they go down the neck. I've had some screw tops where the cork fits great at the top of the neck, but fits a little looser near the bottom because the neck is getting wider by that point.
 
Back
Top