I have been utilizing wine bottles for my beer for a few years now. I have never used wire cages or any other tricks for holding the corks in either, and I almost never have corks pop out, and have never seen a bottle explode.
I have brewed allot of IPA's and PA's that I have rather heavily carbonated, along with less carbonated Scottish ales and Brown ales. So, I've mostly covered the board as far as carbonation goes, other than German styled wheat beer or Belgian styles, which i do know use a lot more primer.
I have been noticing the more I talk to other home brewers, along with further reading and study, that no one uses wine bottles to bottle their beer, unless of coarse, they are doing the Belgian style Trips or Quads.
I would honestly say that maybe 1% or so of the bottles I have done have popped a cork, and those I have attributed to the fact the cork didn't completely lodge in the neck for some reason and I left it as was without re-corking it, or possibly a imperfection in the cork itself. And even then, most of the ones that did not have the cork lodge perfectly did not pop, and they lasted just fine.
A time where I did have an issue with about 15-20% of the corks popping (which I'm not including in my other estimate) was due to bacterial infection that I directly caused. I was new to the game, didn't have a siphon starter, or a bucket with the spout, and out of frustration of juggling so many things at once, along with constantly loosing the siphon, i put the tube in my mouth and sucked a siphon...., lol, I hope I'm not the only one who made that immature mistake.:smack:
The only other problem I had was my first Scottish ale that I bottled in wine bottles as well, but used maybe half as much priming sugar as I should have. It was an experiment to do my best to create Belhaven's Wee Heavy, and I wanted a light carbonation like the bottles themselves have, giving it that smooth feeling. Long story short, I made the beer overly rich in infermentables, and actually had to store it for 2 years. it had little to no carbonation by that time, but the beer itself did taste great, me and the little lady downed about 18L of it in around a week, even with it being mostly flat.
So, getting to the point, I have been doing more research about my bottling style, and all that I am really finding is infrequent topics on the subject, with most people saying "don't do that," "it will not work," and "your bottle might explode, or at least the corks will just blow out."
I would like to start a topic discussing the use of corked and un-caged wine bottles for brewing beer, and one built on experience or experimentation rather than hearsay.
I use regular 750 mL & 1.5L bottles with #8 corks. For whatever lazy and cheap reasoning, I have not upgraded to the floor corker yet so I can use #9 corks with ease.
I just bottled a heavy all grain honey brown ale that I plan on aging until next Xmas, so I will add the info about how that goes for me, along with a weizenbock I am bottling tonight as well, same way as always.
I would love to hear more from other brewers about experiences regarding this, cheers!
I have brewed allot of IPA's and PA's that I have rather heavily carbonated, along with less carbonated Scottish ales and Brown ales. So, I've mostly covered the board as far as carbonation goes, other than German styled wheat beer or Belgian styles, which i do know use a lot more primer.
I have been noticing the more I talk to other home brewers, along with further reading and study, that no one uses wine bottles to bottle their beer, unless of coarse, they are doing the Belgian style Trips or Quads.
I would honestly say that maybe 1% or so of the bottles I have done have popped a cork, and those I have attributed to the fact the cork didn't completely lodge in the neck for some reason and I left it as was without re-corking it, or possibly a imperfection in the cork itself. And even then, most of the ones that did not have the cork lodge perfectly did not pop, and they lasted just fine.
A time where I did have an issue with about 15-20% of the corks popping (which I'm not including in my other estimate) was due to bacterial infection that I directly caused. I was new to the game, didn't have a siphon starter, or a bucket with the spout, and out of frustration of juggling so many things at once, along with constantly loosing the siphon, i put the tube in my mouth and sucked a siphon...., lol, I hope I'm not the only one who made that immature mistake.:smack:
The only other problem I had was my first Scottish ale that I bottled in wine bottles as well, but used maybe half as much priming sugar as I should have. It was an experiment to do my best to create Belhaven's Wee Heavy, and I wanted a light carbonation like the bottles themselves have, giving it that smooth feeling. Long story short, I made the beer overly rich in infermentables, and actually had to store it for 2 years. it had little to no carbonation by that time, but the beer itself did taste great, me and the little lady downed about 18L of it in around a week, even with it being mostly flat.
So, getting to the point, I have been doing more research about my bottling style, and all that I am really finding is infrequent topics on the subject, with most people saying "don't do that," "it will not work," and "your bottle might explode, or at least the corks will just blow out."
I would like to start a topic discussing the use of corked and un-caged wine bottles for brewing beer, and one built on experience or experimentation rather than hearsay.
I use regular 750 mL & 1.5L bottles with #8 corks. For whatever lazy and cheap reasoning, I have not upgraded to the floor corker yet so I can use #9 corks with ease.
I just bottled a heavy all grain honey brown ale that I plan on aging until next Xmas, so I will add the info about how that goes for me, along with a weizenbock I am bottling tonight as well, same way as always.
I would love to hear more from other brewers about experiences regarding this, cheers!
