what bottle corker

[danbloke2000]

Hi all. I have one of those very cheap corners. Made of red plastic...comes in two parts...Pop cork in one bit and then place on bottle then push cork through it with the other section. This to be fair has worked fine but hard work.

I now have a new batch of corker...well quite a lot cos as I did a bulk buy and are too big for said cheap corker. So I now want to replace the cheap cheap corker with a better but hopefully still cheap ish corker. The corks I now have are around 23mm wide.

A bunch of redundant second (and third and fourth) hand wine bottles, a bubbling bucket of wine and I await your thoughts.

Thanks in advance.
Dan.

 

[runningweird]

I have an italian floor corker I bought on the classifieds section, Works very very well.

ian

 

[Yooper]

I went through this myself, and have owned FOUR corkers as a result!

The first one was a mallet type. I couldn't use it, so I bought a Gilda corker. It looked great- squeeze and insert. I couldn't use that either, so I gave it away here on this forum. After that, I bought a double lever handled corker. That worked ok, but I had to use #8 corks to insert them.

The total of those corkers was $60! After that, I bought a Portuguese floor corker for $57 from austinhomebrew.com (about 5 years ago). I wish I would have skipped the first three corkers totally, since they cost more than the corker that DID work out for me. I used that floor corker today, as a matter of fact to bottle 11 gallons of wine.

If you're going to make just a few gallons of wine a year, the double handled lever thing will work out great. They are about $30 now, I believe. If you're going to do more than that, you'd really appreciate the floor corker if you have room to store it.

 

[kc_in_wv]

I bought a Portuguese Double Lever Corker for around $30 that I like. I later found it for about $20 on the internet.

I also bought one of those hammer type and never used it. I can see problems with doing a bunch with it

 

[SteveHoward]

Yooper, have you seen problems with using #8 corks?

 

[danbloke2000]

Hi. Thanks for the replies.

I'm not sure what number the corks are but they are around 23mm wide. I will look at the floor corker but I don't have a lot of space and only do 2 or 3 23 litre buckets a year. Sorry I don't speak gallons although I wish I did as everyone else does. And what do people mean when they say rack off? Is that transfering one batch to another container leaving the sediment behind? And what's a carboy. Think that's the word used.

Thanks again.
Dan.

Oh replies welcome and always read.

 

[SteveHoward]

Carboy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carboy

Racking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racking

1 Liter = 1.06 quarts, and since there are 4 quarts to a gallon, 1 gallon =~ 3.79 liters: http://www.metric-conversions.org/volume/us-liquid-gallons-to-liters.htm

 

[Yooper]

Yooper, have you seen problems with using #8 corks?

No, no problems, but I buy #9 normally so using a hand corker wasn't very convenient for me!

 

[gratus fermentatio]

You can't go wrong with the Italian floor corker, it costs a little more, but it works great.
I love mine.
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/italian-floor-corker.html
Regards, GF.

 

[joeybeer]

I'm about to seal the deal on a "colanna" corker/capper on norther brewer.. Has anyone tried one of these ?
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/colonna-capper-corker.html

 

[feffer]

Ferrari, the Co that makes the nice Italian floor corker also makes a table model that works similarly. That might be an option for the poster since he mentioned space constraints. Also, it's less money than the floor model.

danbloke2000 has a red 2 piece hand corker now, but it doesn't sound like the common 2 handle model that many LHBS carry. Other posters mention that these work well for small quantities. They are harder work, but some report that they work pretty good if the bottle is on the floor and they sit over it and apply their weight. If that's the model you already have, you might try that technique. If not, you might take a few corks and empty bottles to your LHBS (if there is one reasonably close) and ask to test the 2 handle corker.

 

[BrewerBear]

I'm about to seal the deal on a "colanna" corker/capper on norther brewer.. Has anyone tried one of these ?
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/colonna-capper-corker.html

I have one. Just got it and have not used the corker yet, capped a couple cases last weekend. It has to be adjusted for size of bottles, I did a mixture of sizes to test and it is pretty quick and easy to adjust. I think it was worth it, it will do Belgian bottles also.

 

[jpoder]

I have a colonna capper/corker and am very happy with it. price/performance are very good IMHO. comes with bells to cap both 26 and 29mm beer bottles, and I use the corker attachment to cork belgian beer bottles with little problem. It is a little challenging to get the bottles out with the cork 3/4 of the way in, but after a few tries you establish a technique that will work fine. I probably wouldn't want to try to bottle dozens of bottles at a time, but I usually do 5-6 at a time and it is just fine for that.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

I have the italian corker.. wife just bought me an attachment that makes it a capper also. works like a charm

 

[TimothyChurch]

+1 for the Colonna I just got one a week or two back and have already bottled a batch of wine and a batch of beer. It was super easy and fast. I was using the double lever to bottle before hand and this makes that look like climbing everest.

 

[roadymi]

I have the italian corker.. wife just bought me an attachment that makes it a capper also. works like a charm

Where did she find this attachment?

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Where did she find this attachment?

at the local brew shop. if you will look at your corker, there are two little tabs . One on either side of the part the cork goes in. It attaches to those. Lemme see if I can find a link or at least take some pics.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

http://https://morebeer.com/view_product/9728
There ya go

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

 

[RedOctober]

OhioSteve, is this the model you have?

 

[RedOctober]

Where did she find this attachment?

http://www.homebrewit.com/aisle/1043

Adaptor for Crown Caps - Use with Corkers Listed.

Capper attachment for FERRARI Italian Floor, Champaign and Bench Corkers. Bell is standard 26mm for standard crowns. To use with European crowns (29-31mm) purchase the optional European bell item #17550 to fit this adaptor.

Get this as well:

European Bell (29-31mm) for Agata, Super Agata, Red Baron and Ferrari Crown Adaptor

European Bell (29-31mm) for the Agata and Super Agata bench cappers, the Red Baron hand capper AND the Ferrari crown adaptor for floor corkers. 29-31mm bell housing for all of our cappers and the Ferrari corker adaptor.

Unscrew standard bell and screw on this 29-31mm bell for use with larger European crowns. Don't forget to turn around the metal plates that grab the bottle neck on your Red Baron capper when using this adaptor.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

yep, thats the one

 

[Jacob_Marley]

I own a double-lever corker, and a Colonna. Of my corkers, the Colonna sees the most use.
Had a floor corker but it was "repossessed" and haven't gotten around to getting another one.

I use a lot of Zorks also.
I'm a pretty big guy so I can Zork bottles much faster by hand with a leather glove on, than with any of my corkers.