Elderflower champagne

[Cha]

Hi any one no what’s the best bottles for elderflower champagne iv made 23 litres and and I used fizzy juice bottles they where fine I made it again and 4 off them exploded I used the same type of bottles

 

[Drunkula]

What method are you doing? If you're doing it the awful "bottle after X days" way that loads of truly dangerous and irresponsible recipes use then the only safe bottles are PET plastic.

If you let it ferment out and then use priming sugar then pretty much any bottles are ok. I do my wheat beers to 3.3 vols which is plenty - that's fizzier than coke and my nettle beer at that rate is like a super fizzy cider. Even Koppaberg bottles can take that and they're the rice-paper of the bottle world.

 

[Cha]

What method are you doing? If you're doing it the awful "bottle after X days" way that loads of truly dangerous and irresponsible recipes use then the only safe bottles are PET plastic.

If you let it ferment out and then use priming sugar then pretty much any bottles are ok. I do my wheat beers to 3.3 vols which is plenty - that's fizzier than coke and my nettle beer at that rate is like a super fizzy cider. Even Koppaberg bottles can take that and they're the rice-paper of the bottle world.

 

[Cha]

Cheers pal

 

[Richard.]

Hi Cha,

Any bottle you like as long as you respect its pressure tolerances. Therein is the challenge. Ideally you need a reliable method that delivers a predictable end point to the fermentation in the final bottle. However, when making your first batch it is unlikely you will have that reliable method.

So, as like most of us you don't know what the heck is the point it will stop fermenting then put it in a bottle that can control its pressure - these include the swing top bottles that can release excess pressure.

The professionals carefully get a completely dry base wine with an SG of about 0.990 then add a controlled amount of sugar, with fresh active yeast and and nutrient and stable temperature. It goes dry again and they finally decant off the yeast, put in a small amount of sweetener and probably a bit of sulphide to inhibit any residual yeast and get a controlled pressure and sweetness.