Sanitizing cork with vodka?

[HarryBlueHands]

I'm ready to bottle 18 gallons of cider. I've heard people sanitize the cork by soaking in vodka over night. I'm bottling approximately a hundred bottles and doing this to cut down on cost. It kills me to use a whole bottle of vodka for this. I know I'm cheap but my tax return hasn't arrived yet. Is this a common method? Anyone know of other methods? Thanks

 

[Yooper]

First of all, don't soak the corks! You'll ruin them. If mine are brand new, I often don't even sanitize them. But if they've been around in an opened bag, I will either boil a cup of water and drop a campden in and dissolve that and put it (in the container) into a tupperware container with the lid and let the so2 fumes humidify the corks while I rack the wine into the bottling bucket. If I think it needs more, I quickly dunk the corks into the solution when I drop them into the corker.

You can use any kind of non-rinse sanitizer on your corks, but the key is to not really wet them very much.

 

[HarryBlueHands]

Thanks for the help. I plan on bottling six gallons tonight. Wish me luck.