Corking question??

[greg.nursing]

Hello. I have a simple question with hopefully a simpler answer. I bottle lots of wine. I have a stand alone corker. I have 2 blue 30” bottles I want to cork with a pear wine for a wedding gift. The bottles do not fit in my corker and I really do not want to buy another kind that I won’t use again. Any ideas on corking by hand? Ideas the work.

 

[bernardsmith]

Just saw your post and saw that no one had responded. My two cents?
Depends on the diameter of the mouth. If standard size you might look at a hand corker - about $8. You'll need a mallet to whack the pusher home. Hand Corker | MoreBeer

 

[whattabrau]

Do those bottles take standard size corks or larger ones? Normal 750mL/1.5L bottles typically have a 17.0-18.5mm neck ID. If those bottles are larger, and the bottles are not meant to be kept for decades, you might consider a tapered cork or T-cork that you can insert by hand and secure with some ribbon or tape or whatever is decoratively appropriate.

Or if the neck is larger, you might be able to cram in a normal cork by hand (cf. re-inserting a cork into a bottle), but of course it also is just to prevent the liquid from coming out instead of keeping the wine for years.

Or or if there is a winery nearby, they might let you use their equipment.