Ever Wax Your Wine?

[clemson55]

Does anyone ever wax dip their wine bottles? I am going to give a bunch away for xmas and was gonna wax dip them to make them look cool. What is the best way to do this. I was thinking some kind of coffee can or something sitting in a pot of boiling or near boiling water which would melt the wax. Does this sound right?

 

[Orfy]

I've thought about doing this with some of my bigger beers, I think it'd look cool.

 

[Loweface]

I've used shirk capsules, they look pretty cool...

But if it's wax you're after I'd dip them in the tin of wax, then water, maybe repeat if needed. Finally I'd get one of those initailed envelope seals and put your mark on the top...

 

[EvilTOJ]

I've seen wax at the LHBS for that expressed purpose. Your double boiler idea works fine to melt the wax.

 

[awliste]

I've pulled it off - you can do some pretty neat things with it if you do it right.

You've got the right idea - I used an old soup can, filled it up with the wax pellets, and went from there. Sometimes, I'll dip them straight - makes for a plain sealing that looks good. If i'm feeling spunky or need to add 'flair' to the bottle, I'll wrap a short length of string in an '8' kind of pattern across the top (reference a bottle of Maker's Mark), hold tension on that, then dip it. All an opener has to do is pull the string and viola!

I tried to do the runner/drippy down the side of the neck thing - mixed success. It all depends on how fine the wax is and how fast it cools. Too quickly, it will peel itself off of the bottle. Too hot, it'll run down to the base of the bottle. It's nothing you can't cut and adjust with a bic if you need too - but it's annoying.

And any bottles that I've kept in house and opened, I just pitch the wax I chip off back into the can - it all melts again.

My two. Good luck!
- abe

 

[clemson55]

Sounds good I figured the sort of double boiler for melting would be a good call thats what we do with wax for investment molds. I have some wax from the LHBS that is supposed to be for this but I'm not sure what to expect from it thats why I'm asking before I end up with a big waxy mess.

awliste - Do you just dunk the bottles and then let them air cool or do you then dunk them in some water?

 

[awliste]

I'd say let it air cool. I'm not the greatest corker in the world, so in some of mine I had a marginal gap between the bottle and the depth of the cork in the neck. This usually isn't much, but when I was waxing bottles it was enough to create a problematic air pocket that sometimes took a tricky application of a bic lighter to correct (and doing so ruined the uniform presentation of my wax).

I had no problems air drying - the pellet wax I got from my LHBS dried SUPER fast.

My paranoid side is suggesting that water cooling runs the slight risk of contaminating this 'air' area and leaving some funk to taint your wine - or a small surprise for whomever peels the wax off. You're probably a better corker than me, so I wouldn't sweat it too much.

Good luck man!
- abe

 

[clemson55]

This was the first wine I ever made and first time I ever corked so I have some which stick out a 1/16" or so above some flush and some 1/16" os so down into the neck.