Bits of cork in my wine. Help!

So I bottled my mullberry wine yesterday and today I was attaching those pvc shrinky caps to make the bottles look nicer and I noticed there were bits of cork floating around in 5 out of the 18 bottles I made. I had to steam the corks which were first quality #8, 1 3/4 corks, in order to soften them up so I could actually cork the bottles, I tried without steaming and my hand corker kept failing on me.

So my question is what should I do about these 5 bottles? Should I take the corks out, fish out the bits of cork and recork? Should I throw them out? Or should I just drink them sooner rather than later?

Leave them alone and use them as your private stash...(stuff you wouldn't want to share with others)...

What's a hand corker?

http://www.homebrewit.com/aisle/p/4036
This is the corker I was using.

Well, the corks shouldn't be steamed or otherwise heated. I bet that is why they fell apart. Just leave them be, I guess, or remove the corks and recork with untreated corks. I use #9 corks, which are bigger, so your #8 corks are pretty small.

Dont' use the PVC shrink wrap, until you're ready to give the bottles away. You want to see the corks, to make sure they aren't poking out or failing.

Yowamushi said:

http://www.homebrewit.com/aisle/p/4036
This is the corker I was using.

Click to expand...

OK.

I have a hand one that I hold on top of the bottle and smack the cork in with a hammer...

Haven't broken a bottle ever...

YooperBrew said:

Well, the corks shouldn't be steamed or otherwise heated. I bet that is why they fell apart. Just leave them be, I guess, or remove the corks and recork with untreated corks. I use #9 corks, which are bigger, so your #8 corks are pretty small.

Dont' use the PVC shrink wrap, until you're ready to give the bottles away. You want to see the corks, to make sure they aren't poking out or failing.

Click to expand...

Well thanks for the help. I can't recork with untreated corks since my corker comes apart(threads failed but didn't really break) when I try to use the #8 corks untreated but worked fine after I steamed them to soften them up. Sounds like I might need to just get a new corker.

Invest $60-$80 in a floor corker, even my kids can cork a bottle now! Bottling at our house is a team event!