Corking beer bottles

[darylM]

Has anyone tried bottling and sealing the end with a cork? I know some Belgian brews have this feature and I am wondering the advantages/disadvantages to doing this.

[Chubber]

I don't have the equipment, but a club member does and we used it. A couple of pointers:

1) Use the bigger "Belgian" corks. The wine corks won't be tight enough and you will loose gas.

2) Use only Belgian style bottles or Champaigne bottles (if you can stand the green bottles) as they have the neck strength to handle the forces of shoving in a Belgian cork.

3) You will have to push hard to get that cork in, so cheap corking machines need not apply.

4) You can then cap over the cork if you want, and if you use wine corks, then it is kind of required.

Jamil Z recommends using sealing wax on the top of the bottle if you are going to lay down the beer for a few years. I have done that with capped bottles too and it works great and can keep a cap sealed and the beer fresh for years. Mine will have time to tell if this is true.

[corkybstewart]

I bottle wine sometimes so I bought a floor corker several years ago. It cost less than $100 and with 2 of us we can fill and cork about 45 bottles per hour. You can get the Belgian corks and wires from morebeer.com.
I recommend drinking at least one 750 per day of Chimay or other comparable Belgian to collect enough good sturdy bottles. They can handle high carbonation levels and they just look cool sitting on the shelf.
I'm about to bottle my prickly pear mead in Chimay bottles. It's been in secondary a year now and is tasting pretty damn good.

[cul8rv8]

Originally posted by corkybstewart
prickly pear mead

Just a little off topic, but wow does that sound good.

[darylM]

so if I want to go this route, it looks like I need the following things.

1> Belgian bottles
2> Belgian corks
3> a good corker - I am assuming that hand corkers will not deliver

Are their any advantages to corking your beer?

[Chubber]

Originally posted by darylM
so if I want to go this route, it looks like I need the following things.

1> Belgian bottles
2> Belgian corks
3> a good corker - I am assuming that hand corkers will not deliver

Are their any advantages to corking your beer?

That's pretty much it. You won't get very far with a hand corker. It has to be a floor corker to get the bigger, tighter corks into the bottles.

I recommend buying a couple of cases of good Belgian bottles, or Ommegang or the like and drinking your way to two cases. But I guess you could buy the bottles empty, you slacker!

Corking is supposed to be a much better method for sealing a bottle that will be cellared for much more than a year or three, especially if your cellar is humid. The steel crimp caps loose their seal and start to rust after a year or two. That is why Jamil Z recommends the sealing wax thing. That will help keep the seals fresh and the metal from rusting if all you can do is cap.

[darylM]

I thought that it would make a nice presentation for serving a beer. Uncorking a beer would make it memorable for sure. It looks like I may start buying a ez-cap bottles.

edit:

Jeez, i am torn. Having a bunch of corked beer bottles would be neat, especially for gifts. But the initial cost/storage sounds like a PITA. Then again, I am already having to invest in bottles.

[Chubber]

I have a bunch of Champagne bottles (green, so keep them out of the light) and just hand shove in plastic corks, then wire cage them. My oldest beer that way was a pumpkin ale that was 10 months old and it was pretty good. It sealed well. You can use the plastic corks with Belgian bottles, but they won't seal nearly well enough for year+ storage.

Nothing beats the panache of a nice real cork in a Belgian bottle though.

If you can find someone with a floor corker, you may be able to "rent" it for the price of two or three bottles of finished product. Lots of wine makers out there.

And if you put the word out, the bottles will come back to you.

[corkybstewart]

Or just keep drinking a couple of bottles per week of corked 750's of good beer. That's one way I justify a couple of bottles a week of Chimay-Honey, I need the bottles if you want me to give your boss some nice beer for Christmas!!

[darylM]

Well, I just called my LHBS and he has Champagne stoppers and wire cages. He just dosen't have any belgian bottles. I guess that means I need to visit the paint store.


Thanks guys for feeding the habit!