Bottling question

[dibnah]

Somebody left a comment on my blog about not using corks to bottle cider, but did not leave a reason. I was wondering why I should not use them? They were the only thing that I could get hold of at the time. I've since aquired screw top bottles form a boozy friend so will be using them for the next batch. Should I change the ones with corks? they have me worried now.

[thomas533]

is your cider going to be carbonated? If so, the corks are going to pop out once the pressure builds. champagne corks will do with the wire tops securing them. Rather than re-bottle I'd see if you could get some wooden caps that are the same size at the bottle mouths and wire them down over the corks to keep them from popping out. But just incase I'd still keep the bottles in a plastic tub or bag incase one goes...

Avoid re-botting if possible becasue any CO2 pressure you have will be lost and you'd have to add more priming surgar to each bottle (almost impossible to measure correctly)

Good luck!

[Boots]

oooh, that brings back an old memory

Spent ages dislodging tiny shafts of glass from the inside of a cupboard where bottles exploded with a might boom. We thought we were under fire!

...Would have been quite funny watching from a distance..us drunk people taking cover, and then approaching the cupboard in stealth mode...

[Muddypause]

Hey, yeah. Also remember that bottles intended for non-fizzy drinks will not stand much pressure if you put fizzy stuff in them. Sparkling wine bottles are thicker than still wine, for example.

That's about the limit of my brewing knowledge, gained from when I used to make ginger beer.

[dibnah]

thanks for the advice. No I've not added extra sugar so there should be no extra CO 2, so I think I'm safe.

[Cheezy]

The only other reason would be the risk of "corking " the cider.

Around 5% of all corks have the bacteria in them, which spoils a hell of a lot of bottles of wine. Which is why theres a move away from natural cork.

I have a crown top thingy which I used in my beer making hay day. Which is how I do my cider.

[the.fee.fairy]

you can buy grolsch-stlye bottles. They're a good bet for everything.