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Corking Belgian style bottles

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Majd

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Joined
Jun 20, 2012
Messages
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Location
Santa Clarita
Hello,
I bought a used corker to use in bottling my Belgian style beer. Yesterday as I was using it for the first time, I realized two problems in this corker. Here they are:
1- The bottom of the cork housing, where the cork set ready to be squeezed and pushed into the bottle, is not spring loaded fork thingy. It is simply just a circular opening, see the picture below. This caused the corks to get stuck and I spent about 3 minutes trying to extrude the corked bottle from that place. Any ideas what should I do to eliminate this from happening?
2- Second problem, is that the bras jaws are green and smells metallic, some of the green residue gets on the cork as well ( I could see it on the upper part of the cork. As well as the metallic smell is on the cork also. Will this be a bottle contamination source? What can I use to clean those jaws? See second picture for the green jaws.
Cheers, and thanks for the help.

photo 2.jpg


photo 1.jpg
 
It looks like the jaws on the bottom left and right have a gap and might be stuck. I think that is the problem. You could try Brasso to clean them up. Or get new jaws like this https://bellsbeer.com/store/products/Replacement-Brass-Jaws-For-Ferrari-Corker.html . They have a Crown Capper Adaptor https://bellsbeer.com/store/products/Crown-Capper-Adaptor-For-Ferrari-Corker.html .

Papao, thanks for the suggestions;
The gap between the brass jaws is only because I removed the top cover and spread the jaws apart in order to clean them. In a normal case the jaws are fine. As for the crown capper, I think this is for capping beer bottle. What I'm struggling with is the cork getting stuck inside the corker as soon as I release the jaws of the corker.
Any suggestion?
 
Majd
I do wine so I tried a #9 cork in a EZ cap bottle and got this with no problem.
The only thing I can think of is the jaws are sticking. Or he base the bottle sits on does not release with the handle up letting you push the bottle down.

131118_0001.jpg
 
The reason it is getting stuck is because of the design. My floor corker is the same. They are meant to have the cork pushed all the way through.

With mine, if I gently twist and pull down on the bottle, it releases easily. Try to find something flat to push the cork down from the top as you gently twist and pull down on the bottle.
 
PJoyce85 said:
The reason it is getting stuck is because of the design. My floor corker is the same. They are meant to have the cork pushed all the way through. With mine, if I gently twist and pull down on the bottle, it releases easily. Try to find something flat to push the cork down from the top as you gently twist and pull down on the bottle.
Pjoyce. You are right you described it better than I did. I will try that next time. I was also thinking to screw the nut stopper back up and push the handle down again effectively pushing the cork out!! Don't know but it might work.
 
Stick a board under the bottle that's the same thickness as the amount of cork you want to leave sticking out. Insert cork to bottle and then slide the board out, push the plunger the rest of the way down and the bottle will release.
 
Stick a board under the bottle that's the same thickness as the amount of cork you want to leave sticking out. Insert cork to bottle and then slide the board out, push the plunger the rest of the way down and the bottle will release.

TNGabe, have you done that in practice. To be honest with you I thought of this idea, but then I thought that the corker plunger is limited to the threaded nut location of which you determine the level the cork stick out. However, it is worth trying!!
 
TNGabe, have you done that in practice. To be honest with you I thought of this idea, but then I thought that the corker plunger is limited to the threaded nut location of which you determine the level the cork stick out. However, it is worth trying!!

Different corker than what you have, but here's a pic of the set up I use (towards bottom of thread).
 
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