Bottling in champagne bottles

[Kumamoto_Ken]

Thanks again for all the positive advice gents...I went ahead and bottled my saison in a variety of sparkling wine bottles.
It's come up brilliantly...I won't look back!

Credit to SWMBO for emptying all the bottles of their original contents!

 

[Adr_0]

Beauty! Nice one!

 

[Adr_0]

As mje said, you can go to 3-4 volumes without a hint of drama, ie with a lot of headroom. Don't be shy. maybe not 4 volumes for a porter though...

 

[anthonyUK]

Nice one Ken.
You getting hooked on Saisons?

 

[MaltyHops]

... but wheat beers and Belgians are best (if carbonated properly, i.e. pretty bloody high) in champagne bottles I'm starting to think. ...

The major reason I bottle in sparkling wine bottles is their extra strength giving extra safety margin against bottle bombs for normal beers. The way I see it, if you then push the carbonation level higher because you have a stronger bottle, it could mean a potentially more powerful bottle bomb ... something to think about?

 

[Kumamoto_Ken]

Nice one Ken.
You getting hooked on Saisons?

Hi Anthony..hooked might be going a bit far, but it's a style I am enjoying, no doubt.

Made one last summer and was so unaware of how it was meant to taste I thought it might have been infected (didn't stop me drinking them all mind you).
Have made two more this summer and they're going down very nicely.

Hope all's well with you.

 

[skb]

I am thinking of champagne plastic corks for my sour but worried about air ingress anybody know if there are issues

 

[mje1980]

I use plastic for all my funky/sour beers. Easy to use and no problems so far.

 

[pajs]

I make sparkling wine and it is under crown seal. Not much of a fan of plastic corks for reliability of fit. Zork SPK closures the best of the plastic options. If you are dead keen on a cork seal option, I'd suggest Diam sparkling corks and a bench corker. But I'm happy with crown seals.

This thread has got me thinking though about using sparkling wine bottles for my beers. Not a bad idea. I'm about to do an American Wheat with a saison yest, so that could be a good candidate for a change of bottle type.

 

[skb]

The only reason I am concerned with crown is I understand there corrode over time

 

[pajs]

The only reason I am concerned with crown is I understand there corrode over time

Champagne bottle crown seals are pretty much inert and spend long times in direct contact with high-acid wine during the aging process. The standard approach with champagne process has the bottled wine under crown seal all the way until being disgorged, topped, labelled and released. So only sees a cork at the end of the process.

 

[klangers]

The way I see it, if you then push the carbonation level higher because you have a stronger bottle, it could mean a potentially more powerful bottle bomb ... something to think about?

Completely correct. There will be a higher amount of stored strain energy in the bottle which gets released when/if it eventually explodes.

Incidentally, the bump at the bottom of the bottle is to provide additional strength under pressure.

 

[fraser_john]

Just remember that for VicBrew 2015 there was a "no champagne bottles" rule ... not sure if it will apply to 2016 and beyond.

Aside from that, big fan of using champagne bottles.

 

[Batz]

The only reason I am concerned with crown is I understand there corrode over time

Dip them in bottle wax, looks cool as well.

 

[mje1980]

The major reason I bottle in sparkling wine bottles is their extra strength giving extra safety margin against bottle bombs for normal beers. The way I see it, if you then push the carbonation level higher because you have a stronger bottle, it could mean a potentially more powerful bottle bomb ... something to think about?

As mentioned before, home brewers of champagne add roughly 15g to each champagne bottle. Im quite comfortable carbing beers on the higher side in champagne bottles

 

[pajs]

Worth keeping in mind that not all sparkling wine bottles are designed to take the same pressures. Rough rule of thumb is heavier glass for higher pressures. The medium weight bottles I use for sparkles are rated to 5 g/v but heavier ones can give you a 7 volumes rating. These are 750ml.

 

[Mr B]

I thought the bottles were designed so that the bottoms blow out rather then the whole bottle exploding and taking out adjacent bottles in the stack.

I saw it on a show once (one time at band camp)

 

[skb]

Just remember that for VicBrew 2015 there was a "no champagne bottles" rule ... not sure if it will apply to 2016 and beyond.

Aside from that, big fan of using champagne bottles.

Wow what a stupid rule somebody from a big corporate is on that organising committee

 

[Mardoo]

Interesting deduction.

 

[Blind Dog]

Wow what a stupid rule somebody from a big corporate is on that organising committee

No it isn't. They don't fit in standard crates which makes them much harder to store, move and sort. With 600+ entries anything to save a little time and effort is vital to get the comp done and dusted in 2 days.

And no I'm not on the committee, just stewarded and hugely grateful that the bottles were sorted and ordered in crates on the day