Question about Bottling or Corking

[badducky]

Howdy,

We've got a mead close to finishing that we'd like to carbonate pretty high, similar to champagne. I'm curious if other meadmakers have advice about how best to bottle this stuff. Will it be all right with a good, easy bottle cap, or should we spring for a fancy corker, this time.

Also, I'm not clear on whether there is a difference between a wine corker and a champagne corker. What is the difference, if there is one, and what do you guys and gals recommend?

Honestly, if I can get fancy champagne corks and wires, I'd love to do that. But, if I have to pay +160 bucks for a fancy, special corker, I'm not feeling so much the desire to make it fancy.

Thanks for your advice.

 

[Insomniac]

If you are going to carbonate to champagne levels you will need a bottle that can take that much pressure. Standard issue beer bottles and normal wine bottles can't handle it and will explode if capped. Or, if your lucky, pop their corks.

If you can find champagne bottles, some apparently will take a crown cap. Though, the only time I tried to carbonate I ended up buying some plastic bottles designed for pressure, essentually 1 litre sode bottles... I wan't willing to risk messing it up.

 

[badducky]

Thanks, Insomniac

This is for a wedding, so we will definitely prefer nicer champagne bottles to soda bottles.

I suspected as much regarding the bottle caps, but I hoped I could save a few bucks. Oh, well.

The only question, then, is what kind of corking tool I'll need for champagne corks. The only model I've seen that specifically states that it is for champagne was over 160 bucks plus shipping. I'm sure it's very nice, but I'd love to be able to use something less pricey, if it will also do the job.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[biochemedic]

In addition to being able to take crown caps, some champagne style bottles will take a regular cork too... Still, I think it may depend on exactly how many volumes of CO2 were talking here...champagne corks and the associated wire cages are designed to not pop under that pressure. I would *guess* (emphasize *guess*) that using a regular cork plus a crown cap would be equivalent, but have no data to back that up...

 

[fatbloke]

Proper cork bungs/stoppers for champagne or sparkling bottles would need an appropriate device, as they're not the T shape you see when they come out the bottles.

So I would suggest the plastic moulded equivalent. Which can be pushed in by hand, tapped with a light mallet to confirm seating, before wire cages are applied (essential unless you found a screw cap bottle and stoppers. You should also be able to locate foil covers.....

edit - you're likely to have to bottle prime anyway, as doing proper "methode champenoise" is a major arse ache..... even if you did have all the kit !

 

[badducky]

That sounds like an affordable alternative, indeed! I'll give it a shot. Thanks, Fatbloke! (I have to say, I don't like to call you such a name when you've been helpful.)

I think the wedding guests won't object to plastic versus cork. After a few swigs of this fabulously powerful mead, I don't think they'll object to much of anything.

 

[fatbloke]

It does seem that the non-champagne sparkling wines often use plastic stoppers. Though in truth, if you looked into.things, you'd probably find that the only reasons that champagnes are still corked, rather than stoppered with plastic bungs, will be both tradition, but also because its required for the AOC accreditation.

So really its a snob thing. I'd guess it would have to be quite an up market event for any of the guests to complain.

Either way, if its served to them, then any waiter/serving staff member would pocket the stopper if its opened properly and poured. Sure if you want to pay over the odds for the top table to have champoo, great, but I suspect that the guests would feel puffed up enough to be told that its been made bespoke, and as its a mead/honey wine, you could easily give them the honeymoon ****.....

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Howdy,

We've got a mead close to finishing that we'd like to carbonate pretty high, similar to champagne. I'm curious if other meadmakers have advice about how best to bottle this stuff. Will it be all right with a good, easy bottle cap, or should we spring for a fancy corker, this time.

Also, I'm not clear on whether there is a difference between a wine corker and a champagne corker. What is the difference, if there is one, and what do you guys and gals recommend?

Honestly, if I can get fancy champagne corks and wires, I'd love to do that. But, if I have to pay +160 bucks for a fancy, special corker, I'm not feeling so much the desire to make it fancy.

Thanks for your advice.

Bottling in champagne bottles with those white plastic stoppers is EASY. No corker needed, no capper needed, just the stoppers, the wire cages, a rubber mallet & this little tool:
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/hand-operated-champagne-wire-tightener.html

Just use the rubber mallet to tap the stoppers into the bottles, place the wire cage on top, use the tool to twist the wire, fold the twist up & you're pretty much done. It's a lot quicker & easier than bottling with regular corks or crown caps.

It''l take you a couple of tries to get it just right with the wire tool, but it's about 7 or 8 turns IIRC. You'll likely want to get some foil covers to go over the wire cages just to make them look nice & of course a nice label.

I got all the required supplies (except the mallet) at Midwest, they seemed to have reasonable prices; the mallet I got at Harbor Freight & cost me about $3. Hope this info helps.
Regards, GF.

 

[odinsgift]

Any store that sells commercial farming irrigation supplies will have that tool as well.

 

[Goblet]

This is something I've been grappling with recently.

Just carbonating to beer pressures I was able to use crown caps & beer bottles for my sparkling meads, no worries. Then I went to higher pressures (30 psi and 33 deg F for a month) and switched to champagne bottles and plastic stoppers w/ cages. Fine at first, but if not stored upright some bottles leaked all over the wine cabinet. Dang. Those stoppers were really easy to use and the bottles looked really nice, especially with a foil capsule.

Since plastic stoppers have been banned from our wine storage space, I got a fancy champagne capable floor corker and some champagne corks. Lots of troubles -- corks that were soaked in StarSan would slide in a small ways and then get stuck. Trying to remove them, the corks just broke off. The corks are too dense to get a corkscrew into. Stabbed my hand trying to dig one out with a knife. Trip to the emergency room and all. Yeesh.

Tried to switch to crown caps, as my bottles will take them. But the ring around the top of the bottle precludes using a hand capper. With the crown cap attachment, my floor corker has a spring that will fit 22 oz bottles but not the slightly taller champagne bottles. I'm going to try taking out the spring and put in something shorter so I can use crown caps, but first I have to find a suitable replacement spring. Argh.

Found the suggestion on a wine forum to soak the champagne corks in very hot water for about 20 mins. to soften them. That worked and the corks slid in without trouble. Haven't tried removing one yet. I'm kind of bitter about the champagne corks at the moment, but hey, I'm still on antibiotics from the stab wound, so... this too shall pass (with enough glasses of mead).

Really wish the plastic stoppers didn't sometimes leak, but there it is. My long term plan is to go back to crown caps. They've never let me down. They work on soda, which is more highly carbonated than beer, so it seems like they might work on champagne.

I hope your bottling experiences are much MUCH happier than mine. Serving your own sparkling mead at a wedding, well that's really something special. Good luck!

 

[haxcess]

The champagne bottles I have can be capped with standard 29mm crown caps. My hand capper (I think Emily or Red Barron) has reversible plates to switch between 26 and 29mm bottles.

It's less authentic feeling, but a 29mm bell and a bunch of caps are cheap.

 

[Goblet]

Yeah, I have one of those red hand cappers too. But the -- I don't know what it's called -- flange? around the top of my champagne bottles gets crunched when I try to use a hand capper. Maybe a different hand cappers would work. Here are the bottles:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/750-ml-green-champagne-bottles-12-per-case.html

I don't mind if it doesn't look as authentic, as long as it doesn't leak I suppose it wouldn't matter if there was a foil capsule over the top anyway.

 

[badducky]

I did the last racking on the Pomelomelomel that will become champagne-y yesterday. Soon, it will be bottled.

It still tastes pretty rocket fuel hot, but I can taste the mead underneath it, and it is a good one! I hope that heat settles down more by the wedding! I did my staggered nutrient additions and everything. I did all I could!

 

[29thfloor]

You might want to check with your LHBS. Mine lends out their floor corker overnight for free. I bought 750ml Belgian bottles and corks and was able to bottle a batch for just the cost of the bottles/corks.