Does corking make a huge difference? More so then just capping?

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Rivenin

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Hey all!

So, i'm curious, i do have belgian bottles, i have a corker and such and i have some sour beer that needs to be bottled. (well, i have a bottled batch with corks and belgian bottles, but not enough bottles for another batch, but i have a crap ton of 12s and 22s, i'd have to purchase some new belgian bottles)

Does the corking make any sort of a conceivable difference with sour beers? only thing i could think of is the cork would let it "breathe" just a titch and let the bugs play with some oxygen a bit. (like how wine ages in corked bottles vs. capped bottles)

However, with it being air tight and carbing up in the bottles at the same time, i'm thinking the oxygen play would be minimal and it's more for presentation/high vols of CO2 that are usually needed with some sour/belgian beers.

Thoughts?
 
I thought the idea was to use the Belgian bottles (like champagne) because they are made of thicker glass, and the bacteria in a sour is a little harder to control so the the thick bottles can take the higher co2 pressure. If the bottles had a cappable lip I bet people would cap them instead (except for aesthetic reasons).
 
they do have cappable ones, thats where my confusion lies. only thing i can figure is just presentation as iv'e had many sours with just caps that were very high on the CO2. i didn't know if it makes any sort of a "taste" difference
750ml
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375ml
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It is purely aesthetic.

Under carbonation, no exchange goes on. Make sure you use cages, but in the end caps are much safer and easier.

Most champagne bottle take a cap.
 
Many Champange Bottles (if not all) take a larger diameter cap . The Bruery uses capped champange bottles and they have some fairly carbonated product... The caps they use are definitely larger. I just checked.
 
Many Champange Bottles (if not all) take a larger diameter cap . The Bruery uses capped champange bottles and they have some fairly carbonated product... The caps they use are definitely larger. I just checked.

Good to know!

I had a champagne bottle that took a regular cap, but I have NO idea what kind it was.....and it came with champagne in it. You don't want to buy a sh!tload of champagne just to get cappable bottles.
 
I do cork and cage for mainly aesthetic reasons. Bottles look cool and I get oohs and ahs firing the cork a cross the room when opening.

Definitely!

sometimes "It's just for aesthetic reasons" reads "It is unnecessary and silly"

The bottles look AWESOME. Especially in a rack of some sort.
 
It is purely aesthetic.

Under carbonation, no exchange goes on. Make sure you use cages, but in the end caps are much safer and easier.

Most champagne bottle take a cap.

Baloney. As beer ages, it will eventually oxidize. That's why there are oxygen barrier and oxygen absorbing caps, both of which only reduce, but do not stop the oxidization of bottled beer. I've no idea if corks are less permeable than caps, but both are certainly permeable.
 
I don't know how oxygen exchange is through an agglormated cork but I would think it happens just as a whole natural cork.

I cork a lot of bottles because I got a buttload of corks for cheap. Plus I have a lot of the cork only belgian bottles from drinking them. I have a lot of champagne bottles and depending on the beer I will cap or cork or cork and cap like fantome/cantillon.

Champagne bottles come with two cap sizes. 26mm is the standard crown we use on beers and 29mm is normally the standard for champagne. Popping a cork does make it feel much more special than prying off a crown cap.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/champagne-belgian-bottle-tips-291534/

Here's a thread I started with everything you'd ever want to know about corking and capping these types of bottles.
 
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