Belgian corking on a budget

[BrewinDuluth]

I'm going to be bottleing my blackberry belgian wit today, and I wanted to bottle a few 1 pint belgian bottles with corks for the presentation factor. I've been doing some experimenting recently, and here is my new technique
-put a hose clamp around the bottom of the cork and tighten it down and leave it for 10 or 15 minutes
-when you're ready to bottle, push the cork into the bottle as you loosen the hose clamp.
The cork will hold its squished form just long enough for you to push it in the bottle and is otherwise unharmed. I know this would be a pain in the butt to do a whole batch like this, but if you just want a few bottles, it's super cheap.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Good idea...pretty smaht!

 

[Orangevango]

another option would be to get a peice of Hard wood or HDPE about 2 feet long and drill a hole in it about the size of a bottle neck close to one end then cut it down the middle (longways, directly through the hole, and hinge the end nearest the hole. Effectively makeing a pair of 2 feet long pliers that compress a cork down to size. Im just making this up as I go along, but it seems like it would work.

 

[jkpq45]

Are you just reusing the cork that originally came with the bottle (assuming re-used) or did you buy natural corks from LHBS? Are you going to wire it on?