Champagne Caps?? any experience?

[dinnerstick]

in a recent opportunistic trip to champagne to load the back of a rental car i noticed that every winery uses those clampy caps to re-seal opened bottles in the tasting rooms. i guess lots of bars and restaurants use them as well, metal clasps that hold a rubber seal tight onto the mouth of the bottle by grabbing under the lip and pulling tight. has anyone used these for bottling highly carbed anything (ie cider)? they would be totally impractical (and expensive) for a large batch but for a few extra-fizzy bottles that you are going to drink soon they seem convenient. and reusable. but will they hold the pressure, or are they only good once the main burst has already been released? i'll probably experiment with a few but my next batch is months from bottling.
cheers and i hope everyone's christmas cider is at least strong if not delicious

 

[jpoder]

I'm confused...are you talking about bottle conditioning with a champagne stopper like this?

why not buy 29mm caps and a 29mm bell for your capper and cap them like you would a beer bottle? alternatively, you could buy the plastic champagne corks and wires and "cork" them.

I suppose it would probably work to use these, but impractical/expensive. Why not just buy one of them, and use it to "cap" the bottles after opening if you don't want to drink all in one sitting? you won't maintain the high carbonation level, but it like the champagne guys, it won't go completely flat either.

 

[KevinM]

Good question. I've seen the wineries that do sparkling wines use those as well. I agree that while it could possibly work, it may not be worthwhile to do so. Understandibly wineries that do tastings are constantly opening and closing the bottle so a quick and easy clasp would be used.
For me at home, it's easier to either recap or recork the bottle if I don't finish it completely, it's a touch more effort to push it back in, but I'm in no hurry and I also don't need to choose another dozen wines to pour for other people within a 5 minute timeframe either. Over here, the champagne bottles can use the 26mm size. There's a sparkling juice called Martinellis that does this, most other bottles use the 29mm. I'm guessing that most of the bottles that you may find in Europe will use the 29mm as jpoder mentioned.

As for recorking, I've always used either an old wine cork (rather than the mushroom cork) to temporarily seal, or the plastic cork if the bottle had one. The plastic corks are reusable and easily sterilized too and I've actually been using champagne bottles to bottle beer (which I feel is a short term, highly carbed drink) and use the plastic corks. Personally, I do feel it's not an advantage to use them even for short term high carbonated drinks when theres an easy .12 cent (US) alternative which is reusable.

That comes to the question. Do you have the plastic champagne corks in your area, and do you see the clamp resealer as any easier?

Let us know how your tests go. If I ever get one of those clamp resealers I may try a carbonated water test. Water, yeast, about 3 grams of dextrose. I expect that it'd work well enough.