Bottling Safety

Hello,

I recently made a wine from a nice organic Summer berry cordial (1 gallon). After about 5 weeks (racked it once at the end of week 3) fermentation had slowed considerably, to about once every 15/20 minutes or so. I took a decision not to add campden or fermentaion stopper to the wine as I have done in the past. I felt that fermentation was slow enough to not casue any undue problems. As I tend to drink most bottles (saving one or two) within a few months (still experimenting with different brews) I tend to use the corks with the platic toppers, the ones that push in quite easily. This morning, I noticed one of the corks had been almost totally pushed out and the wine was (very very slowly) dripping from the bottle. I recorked and tidied up.

My quetion (finally getting to it) is are the rest of the bottles likely to behave this way? As I am using the stopper type corks will the cork always give before the galss bottle? Should (or can) I uncork and recork with a new cork to release the pressure from the bottles? Should I just leave them?

Thanks in advance.

James.

I would guess that yes, all the bottles will act that way sooner or later. I've rarely bottled wine less than 6 months old. Sometimes it takes alot of time for fermentation to finish and for the co2 to degas.

Maybe the weather changes caused fermentation to restart? I would definitely recork them, or gently transfer to a carboy and see what's going on. Check the s.g. a couple of times to see if it's changing before rebottling, maybe.

And, yes the cork should always give before the glass.

I am thinking I might just take the risk here to be honest. I might recork and just leave it. Chance are they will all be drunk soon enough anyway. I have been doing a lot of 1 gallon "experiments" - currently working on a lot of differing organic cordials. I plan on making bigger batches soon then i'll probably take more care over this stuff.

With experimental stuff it's hard not to drink it I guess . FYI anyone in the UK/Ireland Belvoir Fruit Farms (www.belvoirfruitfarms.co.uk) does a Summerberry Cordial that makes an excellent Rosé without too much hassle!

James.

kouphax said:

With experimental stuff it's hard not to drink it I guess . FYI anyone in the UK/Ireland Belvoir Fruit Farms (www.belvoirfruitfarms.co.uk) does a Summerberry Cordial that makes an excellent Rosé without too much hassle!

Click to expand...

Looks really good! I have also recently got the experimental bug after brewing a gallon of Apfelwein. Yesterday I got a strawberry wine going, recipe located here. Only downside is that recommended conditioning time is 6 months, which I don't think I'll be able to handle, especially with an experimental batch. It should be really good for the summer