What corks to use for reclaimed 750ml Wine Bottles

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ITbrewer229

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I'm going to be making my first batch of mead (still mead) and am curious about corks since this is new territory for me.

I've been saving wine bottles for the mead. I see a good price on morebeer.com for Belgian 750ml corks and was wondering if anybody had any insight if these will work in standard 750ml wine bottles? Or is there some difference between Belgian corks and wine corks? I would think this is standard but wanted to ask before I assumed.

Thanks!
 
Do you have a good floor corker? Usually those are needed for getting the belgian corks into the bottles and can be kinda tricky. Additionally belgian beer bottles are very thick throughout, but especially at the neck. Not sure if a std wine bottle would stay intact as you are putting that much pressure on it. I'm not sure whether a belgian beer bottle has the same size opening as a wine bottle.

I would stick with standard #8 wine corks if you have one of the cheaper corkers (I have the one you hammer on the plunger). If you have a better floor corker or lever corker, you could probably use #9 corks which are a little larger. They should help combat air intrusion and limit long term oxidation vs a #8.
 
I'm going to be making my first batch of mead (still mead) and am curious about corks since this is new territory for me.

I've been saving wine bottles for the mead. I see a good price on morebeer.com for Belgian 750ml corks and was wondering if anybody had any insight if these will work in standard 750ml wine bottles? Or is there some difference between Belgian corks and wine corks? I would think this is standard but wanted to ask before I assumed.

Thanks!

Belgians are 25.5mm x 44mm for use on Belgian beer bottles. Wine corks IIRC are 22-24mm and vary in legnths.

The cork quality depends on how long you plan on storing. I would use #9 diamond corks.
 
I have that tabletop corker and its very nice, it does a good job for both corking and beer capping. Its not as nice a corker as a floor model that has jaws that compress the cork from the sides all at once, this one squeezes the cork through kind of a funnel going into the bottle. Works well for synthetic corks. Size 9 is a better cork size, longer supposed to age longer. One nice thing about this corking is you can switch to the beer capper easily. We like to do a variety of different closures. We put in a few high quality corks for long term storage, some Zorks installed with the corker and even some new screw caps. This model has 2 beer bottle sizes, the larger one is nice to seat Zorks in very easily and straight. It can leave a big dimple in the cork since is squeezes it going through the funnel, you might have to take the adapter off sometimes and just give them a little push down with the corker to seat them deeper. All in all a nice multiuse corker/capper.

WVMJ
 
I have that tabletop corker and its very nice, it does a good job for both corking and beer capping. Its not as nice a corker as a floor model that has jaws that compress the cork from the sides all at once, this one squeezes the cork through kind of a funnel going into the bottle. Works well for synthetic corks. Size 9 is a better cork size, longer supposed to age longer. One nice thing about this corking is you can switch to the beer capper easily. We like to do a variety of different closures. We put in a few high quality corks for long term storage, some Zorks installed with the corker and even some new screw caps. This model has 2 beer bottle sizes, the larger one is nice to seat Zorks in very easily and straight. It can leave a big dimple in the cork since is squeezes it going through the funnel, you might have to take the adapter off sometimes and just give them a little push down with the corker to seat them deeper. All in all a nice multiuse corker/capper.

WVMJ

Thank you for the detailed feedback. I appreciate the thorough, honest review.
 
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