Old Wine Bottles for beer?

[grayhalladay]

Probably an easy question,

If I sanitize old wine corks, could I use them for bottling beer? SWMBO drinks the cheap stuff with the synthetic corks (woodbridge, ugh...) and I have several old Boule Smokestack Series bottles. It will obviously work to hold beer, but will it carb right?

 

[stratslinger]

Nope - the glass in most wine bottles really isn't up to holding the pressures of carbonating beer. And also, unless you can cage the corks in some way, the pressure is likely to shoot the corks right out of the bottles.

 

[AMonkey]

Yep, corks won't stay in under pressure.

 

[Revvy]

If you've ever looked at the design of a Belgian Cork and cage style of beer bottle (which is like a champagne bottle in thickness as well) you will see that the top "lip" of the bottle is designed in such a way as to allow the corks to be held in place by a wire cage.

Wine bottles aren't designed to do that. Addionally the bottom of the cork is flared outward to help grip the cork on the inside of the bottle, as opposed to a wine cork, which is a straight cylinder.

As soon as carbonation developed you would find the cork rising up the neck of the bottle.

 

[grayhalladay]

Thanks Guys, i bottled a batch of Edworts apfelwein as my first brewing experience into beer bottles like cider, which was awesome, but wanted a more "fancy" presentation this time around. Also been lurking around and found a Tank 7 clone that also deserved a nice presentation. Old grolsh bottles it is.