| Compressed air? Think of
the neck of the bottle as a cylinder. The cork acts like a piston, pushing
whatever air is underneath it into the bottle compressing it down. If there
isn't enough room for the air, the cork could pop right back out, refusing
to stay put in the bottle. The care and attention you take when filling
your bottles will go a long way to keeping your wine fresh and unspoiled. |
| Corks!
Corks! Corks! |
| Corks
are made from the bark of the cork oak, Quercus Suber. There are persistent
rumors that the cork forests in Portugal (representing 30% of the worlds'
cork trees) are in danger from industrial pollution, or are hit by disease,
or are doomed in some way. This simply isn't true. According to the Cork
Quality Council, the effects of industrial pollution are limited to IO%
of a single forest, or less than 1% of all the corks in Portugal (that's
0.3% of the world's cork trees). Also, there is beginning to be a reduction
in the demand for corks, allowing the home winemaker a wider range of cork
choices than ever before. |
| Agglomerated corks are made
from chipped cork pieces ground to a specific size and glued together with
non-reactive polyurethane glue. Inexpensive and easy to handle, these are
suitable for wines that will be held for six months to a year. |
| Synthetic corks are made
from inert synthetic resins, and while some wineries have tried them, mainly
for short-term wines, they haven't proven effective for all purposes. They
have to be put in with a heavy-duty corker, and can only be extracted with
a good worm-type corkscrew wielded by a strong hand. Further development
is needed before the home wine maker could put them to use. |
| Natural cut corks are just
that: simply punched out from cork bark. They rely on the density and elasticity
of the natural cork bark to seal the bottle. Depending on the quality of
the cork, you can expect your wine to last from 3 years to more than 10.
Another thing that comes in to play when choosing a cork is the bevel.
This is the tapered edge that some of the less expensive corks have around
the top and bottom of the cork. This is to allow easier insertion with
hand held corkers. The thing to remember is that the bevel actually reduces
the amount of surface area in contact with the neck of the bottle. This
contact is what prevents the passage of wine past the cork. If you have
a 1 inch long cork, but 1/8 inch is beveled off of each end, it is effectively
only 3/4 inch long. |
| How long should your cork
be? Which cork is right for you? Look realistically at how long you expect
to store your wine before drinking, and figure
out how much cork fits in your budget. A good rule of thumb is 'you get
what you pay for.' The cheapest cork isn't always the best deal, and if
you do decide to keep some bottles for the future, you may find yourself
having to re-cork them in a few years. In addition, if you are making a
wine
kit you intend to drink within the next 6 months, a very long cork
might be a waste of money. |
| PreparIng Your Corks |
| If you are using a high
quality, iris- jawed floor corker there is no need to soak or sulfite any
of the corks that Leener's sells. Simply insert them dry. |
| If you are using a small,
hand-held corker (single or double-lever types) you may need to prepare
your corks by soaking them in warm water for 20 minutes. If you have trouble
getting corks to pass through your hand-held corker, you may want to try
adding 1 cup glycerin to every four liters of warm water that you use for
soaking. This ensures that the corks get enough moisture to lubricate their
passage through the corker, but they won't be over soak and crumble. |
| While some books talk about
boiling and long soaking in sulfite solutions, these are very bad ideas.
Cork is tree bark, and boiling it turns it to mush. Mush won't seal your
bottles. Long soaking does the same thing. Corks can soak up sulfite solutions
and transfer them to the wine. Once you have opened a bag of corks, you
may need to take special care of the unused corks. |
| The trouble with handling
very dry corks is that it's tough to judge how long you can soak them before
they become mushy. However, there is a nifty technique that you can take
advantage of, if your corks are brittle either from age or low humidity
storage. You can construct a 'cork humidor'. |
| You will need a sanitized
plastic bucket and lid, an empty wine bottle, and a 1.25% solution of metabisulphite
(eight teaspoons of metabisulphite powder dissolved in a gallon of cool
water). Fill the wine bottle halfway with the solution, and carefully stand
it up in the bottom of the bucket. Gently pour your corks into the bucket,
filling the space around the bottle, and put the lid on tightly. Leave
the bucket in a room temperature area for about a week. In that time the
liquid evaporating from the wine bottle will raise the humidity in the
bucket in turn raising the humidity in the corks, making them pliant enough
for easy insertion. The sulfur dioxide gas coming off the liquid will prevent
the growth of moulds or spoilage organisms, keeping the corks sanitary.
No further treatment of the corks will be necessary before bottling. |
| If you want to store your
corks this way, replace the solution in the bottle every four weeks, and
keep the lid tightly sealed. That way your corks will always be ready for
use. |
| Choosing and Using a
Corker SEE USING
A FLOOR CORKER |
| There are several types
of corkers available. We highly recommend a floor corker with jaws that
compress the cork like an iris. Other corkers (twin lever, single lever,
and compression corkers) rely on human muscles to compress the cork and
push it into the bottles. |
| Iris jaw floor corkers,
while more expensive, use simple levers and mechanical advantage to carefully
compress the corks and insert them precisely into the bottles. Also, they
hold the bottles steady in a spring-Ioaded base. They are really worth
the extra money. |
| After the corks have been
inserted into the bottles it's a good idea to dry the top of the cork off
with a cloth. This will prevent any moisture there from forming mould on
the top of the cork. While a spot of mould on the top of the cork wouldn't
hurt your wine, it does look unpleasant. |
| Dressing Up |
| After all of your bottles
have been safely filled and corked, you can choose to put capsules
over
the neck of the bottle. While not necessary to preserve the wine, they
give a nice finished look to your bottles, and when coordinated with
labels
give your wine a professional look. Capsules are often called shrink-caps,
because heat is used to shrink the plastic onto the bottle neck, holding
it tightly and smoothing out any wrinkles or seams in the plastic. |
| The best way to apply this
heat is with the steam from a kettle. At a rolling boil the kettle will
produce enough steam out of the end of it's spout to shrink a capsule in
only two or three seconds. Be careful not to burn your fingers! While you
can use blow dryers, they are very slow. Hot air paint strippers work better,
but they aren't as fast as a kettle, and are a bit more dangerous to use.
In a pinch the heat from an electric stove element will also serve to shrink
the capsules on, but again, be careful with a hot stove. |
| You should leave your wine
bottles standing upright for at least the first 24 hours after corking.
Remember the piston-and-cylinder analogy from above? The compressed air
has to work its way out past the cork, and it can only do that if the bottle
is standing up. If you immediately turn the bottle on it's side, the pressure
will still be there, but the wine will now be pushing against the cork,
and could force it out of the bottle. After 24 hours (or two or three days:
it isn't critical to do it right away) you should turn the bottles on their
side for long term storage. This is when the wine against the cork will
keep it moist, preventing leaks. |
| You may notice mould on
top of some of your corks after a few months. This isn't necessarily a
sign that your wine has leaked through. It could be that a small amount
of wine stayed on top of the cork at bottling and has moldered there, Carefully
wipe the top of the cork and the bottle neck with a clean damp cloth before
extracting the cork, and the wine should be fine. |
| How long will your wine
keep? This is a tough question to answer as it depends on so many factors.
As long as you keep it safely in a cool (60°F or lower), dark room,
with good care and attention to your bottling practices, your wine will
last as long as the raw materials it was made from. Better quality ingredients
usually mean a wine that will age longer. |
Quality
makes all the difference. We sell only the finest quality wine making kits
from the worlds leading manufacture Brew King. There is no reason for us
to carry any other brand. Saving 10 to 15 cents per bottle with a lessor
brand just doesn't make good wine sense.
