Screw tops bottles

[theboytony]

Just a quick question about bottling wine, is it ok to just re use screw top wine bottles or is it a better idea to get a corker and use normal bottles

Thanks

 

[Moley]

In my opinion there are two things against screw tops, they generally have a waxed or plasticised cardboard disc as a seal, designed to be used once and then thrown away, this could present a source of infection. Also, unless you've racked your wine, stabilised with sorbate and are absolutely certain that fermentation has finished, screw caps can't blow off.

If you throw away the screw caps and use corks, you might find you need a larger diameter cork.

Personally, I wouldn't bother with a corker, I tend to use plastic stoppers, around 5p each and they are re-usable after a quick soak in a sterilising solution.

 

[arturobandini]

You can use screw tops if you wish but if you want the maturing affect of breathable cork, the reason good wines will never be screw topped, you won't be wanting to use them. If you see yourself with a future in wine making then it may be worth getting a corker of some description. I bought a lever wine corker for 99p on eBay and wine corks themselve are fairly cheap; don't buy used on eBay...the sale of these baffle me.

I've bottled a few things in re-used screwtops and have had no leakage/off tastes so it's a fine as a practice but lacking potentially in end product. If you artificially end your fermentation highly then I would suggest you use something like Moley suggests in case you end up pressurising the vessel.

 

[ChrisG]

I wondered about this too....

Just bottled four using screw tops and normal corks. Seems to work well, so not sure where the problem is.

 

[falafael]

i always cork, and soon got to be using screw-topped bottles, but the corks fit these no problems with no leakage, so thats worked ouot for me in the end...no i just need a bloody cellar for the bottles of wine i keep on making!! lol