My Title Doesn't Have The Word "Keg" in it - is That Okay?

[sremed60]

I want to brew Belgian style beers using 750ml Belgian-style bottles and cork & cage. I was wondering if anyone knows where to find quality reference corks? They are usually stamped with the (REF) in brown ink.

The "Belgian" corks most home brew supply stores sell are cheap, (if they sell "Belgian" corks at all). They fall apart if you look at them the wrong way. The stores that don't sell them try to tell you to just use wine or champagne corks. One guy, (in business for over 20 years), told me the only difference between a Belgian cork and a champagne cork is that the Belgian cork has that mushroom shape on top.

So I was just wondering if anyone happened to know where I could get some of the real ones like the commercial breweries use, (without having to buy 10,000 at a time)?

 

[BrewerBrad82]

Ive used these to great success:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/belgian-beer-corks-100-count

 

[teamcoaster]

I brew belgians and put some of my product into 750 ml corked bottles.

I get mine from Alternative Beverage in Belmont, NC, http://ebrew.com . They have what must be the worst looking HBS website on planet Earth but that's one place you can find them.

I don't recall whether those corks have the 'ref' stamp on them or whether I use natural or man-made corks but I can say that they work well for me. I'll look when I get home and will update this if you like.


They are straight sided (not mushroomed) until after being inserted into the bottle. Just make sure that you adjust the cork machine to insert the cork only about 3/4 of the way into the bottle. There are a number of youtube videos out there that demonstrate the technique. I recommend practicing your technique on empty bottles til you're happy with the result.

HTH.

Doc

 

[sremed60]

Ive used these to great success:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/belgian-beer-corks-100-count

The picture I posted of the torn corks coming out of the corker machine ARE from Northern Brewer. They responded saying the Italian floor corker is better than the Portuguese floor corker for these corks. (That's the first I heard of that)
Either way, there's reviews on their site from people having to use pliers and peel the corks out of the bottle in pieces. The two corks I tried tore apart just trying to get the bottle out of the corker machine.

I'll keep looking. The ones I got from Northern make great play things for my 2 year old granddaughter - so it wasn't a TOTAL waste of money.