Corks popping out

[Chris_1984]

Apologies for the billy basic question; I brew more beer than wine, but I do dabble now & again.

So basically, I usually put wine into clear beer bottles and just cap it. However, I recently got my hands on some green wine bottles and one champagne bottle. So I did the usual - added sugar to aid carbonation then siphoned into the bottles and corked them.
Two weeks later, POP - and the corks popped out (half standing up, half on their side) so it meant wine had to be drunk fairly quickly. This wasn't a young wine; it was an elderberry wine I had made back in October last year and had left to mature for a bit.

Can anyone shed some light?

 

[krazypara3165]

I soakd the corks overnight and over the course of a few days had to keep pushing them back in intil they stayed. Theve been fine since. Also best to make sure they have been stabalized and have definatly finished fermenting but as its not a young wine I would imagine thats fine.

 

[danb]

As far as I'm aware if carbing it should be using the corks and cages not just standard wine bottles.

 

[oldbloke]

Trying to carb ordinary wine bottles is asking for trouble. There's a reason champagne bottles (and other sparkling wines) are heavier glass and the corks are held in by a cage. Having the corks pop out has saved you having to clear up a lot of shattered glass.

 

[Chris_1984]

Ah, so corks popping out are a normal thing? Surely if they pop out and I notice a few hours later there's a risk of contamination??

 

[chrig]

You should not be adding priming sugar to normal wine bottles at all.

if you don't have alot of proper champagne bottles, stoppers and wire cages then use 1L plastic pet bottles for sparkling wines

 

[Chris_1984]

Gotcha - just siphon into bottles, add nothing and cork.

 

[DrD]

If you want to make it fizzy, without buying champagne corks/cages, use screw top, plastic fizzy drink bottles.

Does mean you need to drink it 1.5/2 L at a time, but I'm sure you'll get over that :drunk: .

 

[Robbo]

Apologies for the billy basic question; I brew more beer than wine, but I do dabble now & again.

So basically, I usually put wine into clear beer bottles and just cap it. However, I recently got my hands on some green wine bottles and one champagne bottle. So I did the usual - added sugar to aid carbonation then siphoned into the bottles and corked them.
Two weeks later, POP - and the corks popped out (half standing up, half on their side) so it meant wine had to be drunk fairly quickly. This wasn't a young wine; it was an elderberry wine I had made back in October last year and had left to mature for a bit.

Can anyone shed some light?

Elderberry wines are usually meant to be a still dry wine and not carbonated......before bottling make sure the wine has been stabilised and degassed.