Homemade disgorging system/bottleneck freezer

[Martin Morsing]

I wish to make a homemade disgorging system where its possible to freeze the champagne caps before disgorging and since the professionel bottleneck freezers is quite expensive I am looking for good ideas. Does anyone have experience with a homemade system?

Martin

[J.B.Worcester UK]

If you are not too fussy and it is only for friends and family the cheapest and quickest way after riddling is to hold the bottle upside down over a sink whip the top off fast, turn the bottle upright and nearly all the sediment will be down the drain with very little loss of cider/perry. Do it in cold weather if it is very fizzy.
    I used to freeze it in a domestic deep freeze in brine or proper food grade antifreeze but for home consumption family weddings etc I just do a few bottles with proper corks for show then reuse the crown caps for the bulk.     Wassail   JB

[Tony Lovering]

Just hold the bottle down and place on the cap remover. All the sediment should be solid on the cap. Move the bottle to about 45 deg upright and watch the bubble just touch the sediment and remove the cap. The gas will push out all the sediment. Here is a video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSf4-kKRAEY

Cheers

[Claude Jolicoeur]

I think a lot depends on what are your objectives.
If you do the disgorging only to have a good looking dry cider without deposit in the bottle, then "à la volée" without freezing as suggested by Tony and JB would surely be fine.
But, if your objective is to make a medium cider with residual sugar, and you don't want this sugar to referment in the bottle (as discussed in another thread recently), then you need to make a perfect disgorging. In this case, you might have better chances of success if you freeze the neck.

A basic system could be like this:
Take a square or rectangular bath that will be filled with a brine at a very cold temperature (like -20C). You can find easily on Internet the salt concentration you need to keep your brine still liquid at that temperature.
Fit a piece of plywood on top of your bath, make holes in this board so the bottles will hold upside down, and the necks will be in the brine.

Ideally, you would proceed outside on a very cold winter day so that your brine stays cold enough (otherwise you'd have to have a system to refrigerate it), refrigerate your bottles to near freezing point, then freeze the necks in the bath and disgorge.
Claude

[Old Spot]

I failed with attempts with a brine solution, so on small scale (a few cases at a time) I have been very happy with a dry ice/isopropyl alcohol solution, easily getting to -20 C. There might be a better choice for the freezing medium, but a warm wet towel to wipe off neck before disgorging seems to alleviate concerns. I also devised a cardboard cut-out to hold six bottles in a small plastic tub. It takes 5-6 min to freeze off the neck, and have found that I can do about 1 per minute, so freezing more bottles each round is not really needed. And in the end, a la volee method is preferred almost always, with disgorgement performed just before home consumption.

[Martin Morsing]

Thanks everybody...very helpfull. I did do the disgorging without freezing before which was okay succesfull but as Claude guessed on behalf on a previous thread my concern is to get rid of the sediment in order to avoid further fermentation. I will try your suggestions...thanks!

Martin

[Scrumpy-]

Here is a relatively simple and cheap system that has worked well for me.  I add a little stock sulfite solution and a saturated sugar solution to adjust my residual sugar before re-capping and have had no problems with re-fermentation (yet).

You need at least two rectangular tubs (mine are plastic fish totes that commercial fishermen use), some livestock screen wide enough to fit champagne bottles or hay wire to make a mesh, and a wooden frame.

Fit a wire rack frame in a tub or use a cardboard champagne box with dividers.  Give each bottle a good shake and place it upside down in the rack and after a few minutes check the crown caps to see if any of them leak.  Then twist each bottle sharply every day for two or three days.  Let the lees settle (2-7 days).  The lees will not be very compact so take care not to agitate the bottles or turn them right side up until the necks are frozen.  Put a wire rack in a tub then fill it half way with crushed ice and just enough water to make it easy to submerge the inverted bottles.  After about 45 min, add crushed ice and rock salt in a weight ratio of 10:3 to the second tub.  Mix the ice and salt with a shovel and add a wire rack. 

After about 45-60 min the bottles in the first tub will be just above 0 deg C.  Move them to the tub with the freezing solution which should be no deeper than necessary to accommodate the necks to twice the thickness of the lees or 5 cm which ever is deeper.  Give the necks 5-10 minutes to freeze then disgorge. Be sure to have a bucket full of sanitizing solution to dip the necks in before disgorging to wash the salt off and prevent contamination. Don't let the necks freeze to the point were the ice develops past where the neck starts to increase in diameter.  

If you used bentonite when you bottled, your lees will be more compact but take longer to riddle. Your pressure should be at least 3 atmospheres to properly expel the ice plug and retain much residual carbonation.  I have used bindles and find that they help a little to eliminate residual lees that may stick to the inside of the neck (risk of re-fermentation) but it takes a little more pressure to expel them reliably.  If you add a sugar syrup, you will see a slightly cloudy layer in the bottom of the bottles for a few weeks.  This seems to be a dense layer of sugar syrup that takes a little while to disperse into the cider.  I also keep a PET test bottle that has been disgorged with a pressure gauge mounted in the cap to get some advanced warning if fermentation restarts.

[Tony Lovering]

A bit off topic, sorry

Ive installed a pressure gauge in one of my champagne bottles. I was wondering if anybody has mapped the pressure over time? I put 18 grams per ltr of sugar in and 5 grams of EC-1118 per 30 ltrs and bottled them up. They have sat at 25 deg C for 2 weeks and went to 30 Psi so I have moved them into the colder shed. The pressure has gone down to 25 and sitting stable. Does the pressure go up gradually or steeply at the beggining and then taper off? The gauge is 60 Psi so was wondering if its large enough

Cheers

[Scrumpy-]

Here are a couple of carbonation curves.  The first one has a smooth rise to nearly 2 atmospheres.  I must of been drinking too much when bottling the second and under primed it.  On day 7, I chilled them and added more sugar and it accelerated before flat lining at just over 2 atmospheres.  These were experimental batches with cider I didn't really expect to drink due to their extreme acidity.  They both surprised me by being just palatable.  I kept the temp nearly constant.