I am an amateur home brewer, I brew beer from time to time and every year for the past 5 years I made some wine. I buy 6 gallons of merlot juice and 6 gallons of cabernet franc. Ferment them separately and mix them once complete. I never do anything crazy with them I just add yeast when they are in the buckets, let them ferment for about a week, transfer to carboys and let them sit for about 6-7 months. I usually just put the wine in 1 gallon jugs. I want to bottle in wine bottles to save a few bottles for years to come. Is there anything I need to do other than sanitize the bottles and cork them to save wine for years to come vs drinking within a year. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Bottling Wine Properly?
- Thread starter ja3372
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
The only addition would be campden tablets, also known as potassium metabisulfite. It is added to the wine as an antioxidant and preservative.
theDREWery
Well-Known Member
I'd also look into bi-disk corks, I think they're the best value corks for long term aging. Synthetic corks are probably much better functionally, but they just don't feel right to me.
There also seems to be a lot of debate about sanitizing corks. Keep in mind that, to the best of my knowledge, no major wineries sanitize their corks and produce many wines that can age well for many, many years.
I always buy a bag of K-Meta.
Make a k-meta solution in a 1 gallon jug.
Use that solution to sanitize the bottles. I usually keep the bottles a bit wet with meta. The added k meta won't hurt especially if you plan to age long term.
I also spray k-meta on to corks prior to bottling.
Some would suggest soaking in warm water or warm k meta.
jonereb
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 10, 2014
- Messages
- 236
- Reaction score
- 19
At one time I felt the same about synthetic corks, but now I've come to like them better. Occasionally, I'll get a real cork that disintegrates while uncorking a commercial wine. I've never had this issue with synthetic. Having said that, I'll use real corks for the first time in about a month or so.
gregbathurst
Well-Known Member
Nothing seals as well as a natural cork. Synthetic corks are just to save money.
