Screw cap bottle seals

[michael]

This is a little off topic,and to do with storing wine in screw cap type bottles.I keep my cider and wine in 5 litre demijohns (after transfer from the 30 litre fermenters)The cider is then transferred to 5X1litre bottles/carafes for semi immediate drinking.The wine is transferred into 6x0.75litre screw top bottles for longer term storage.My question is whether one can reuse these screw top caps and seals,and use them for long term (2-5 years) storage.I always include 30ppm sulphite when bottling.Commercially I am sure that unopened wine in these screw tap bottles will have a shelf life of some years,but are reused seals O.K.If not is it possible to obtain new caps and seals?

michael

[Andrew Lea]

On 10/03/2012 10:51, michael wrote:
>
> The wine is transferred into
> 6x0.75litre screw top bottles for longer term storage.

Can you be more explicit about these bottles? Are they the glass type
with 28 mm threads such as Vigo sell and which are designed for re-use
with new pre-threaded plastic caps? Widely used for apple juice and
cider. See
http://www.vigopresses.co.uk/store/product_info.php?cPath=60_81&products_id=442
They should be OK for long-term storage.

Or are they commercial single-use wine bottles with thin metal screw
caps (eg Stelvin
http://www.amcor.com/businesses/other_businesses/capsules/) which are
actually formed onto the the thread during the manufacturing process?
Those are not suitable for re-use and long term storage because the seal
and thread are too easily deformed. You cannot buy replacement caps
because each is moulded individually to its own bottle from a blank.

Andrew

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[Claude Jolicoeur]

Andrew Lea wrote:
> Or are they commercial single-use wine bottles with thin metal screw

> caps (eg Stelvinhttp://www.amcor.com/businesses/other_businesses/capsules/) which are

> actually formed onto the the thread during the manufacturing process?
> Those are not suitable for re-use and long term storage because the seal
> and thread are too easily deformed. You cannot buy replacement caps
> because each is moulded individually to its own bottle from a blank.

You are probably right Andrew, but I have reused such wine bottles
with a screw alu cap for bottling flat cider - I thought it was sad to
send them to the recycling and wondered why not reusing them? Up to
now I didn't have any problem with these bottle/cap tandem, but I
would expect the cap will not last for multiple reuses. Maybe 2 or 3?
We'll see! For sure I wouldn't use them for a sparkling cider.

What I have used for sparkling is the glass Perrier bottles (and other
sparkling mineral water) with their screw cap. The Perrier bottles are
solid and heavy and can take quite a bit of pressure - but I am not so
sure for the closure. Possibly the caps will only stand a couple of
reuses.

Claude

[greg l.]

Last year I bought a pallet of glass mineral water type bottles, with
plastic screw caps. I was told this combination was not approved for
carbonated beverages as the seal was not reliable enough. I have only
had a couple of seals fail, and intend to re-use the caps. I think the
standards required for your own comsumption are quite different to
products for sale. You can buy cappers for the stelvin-type closures
but I imagine they are a bit expensive for small-scale producers. I
agree with Claude that re-using the caps would probably be ok for home
use.

Greg

[michael]

My question concerns the Stelvin type wine cap,although I have quite an assortment of different types.So far I have not had a problem with storage over around three months.I always add 30ppm sulphite on bottling and thought that this may cope with a small air leak.I give quite a lot of wine to family members and always ask for their comments-I am sure they would tell me if there was a problem.I do not wish to revert to using corks,as I did in my early days of winemaking,so my options are to either store the wine in the 5litre demijohns and put it into reused commercial wine bottles for a short time,or invest in some new bottles with more secure top or cap.It all depends on whether I believe that wine in 5litre storage with a tight rubber bung is as good as wine that has been in a bottle for some while-I do not really understand why there should be a difference.All of my cider and wine is flat so I would welcome suggestions for an economical wine bottle with secure storage potential.

Michael

[Andrew Lea]

On 13/03/2012 14:43, michael wrote:
> My question concerns the Stelvin type wine cap,although I have quite an
> assortment of different types.So far I have not had a problem with
> storage over around three months.I always add 30ppm sulphite on bottling
> and thought that this may cope with a small air leak.I give quite a lot
> of wine to family members and always ask for their comments-I am sure
> they would tell me if there was a problem.I do not wish to revert to
> using corks,as I did in my early days of winemaking,so my options are to
> either store the wine in the 5litre demijohns and put it into reused
> commercial wine bottles for a short time,or invest in some new bottles
> with more secure top or cap.It all depends on whether I believe that
> wine in 5litre storage with a tight rubber bung is as good as wine that
> has been in a bottle for some while-I do not really understand why there
> should be a difference.All of my cider and wine is flat so I would
> welcome suggestions for an economical wine bottle with secure storage
> potential.
>

If you are happy with 5L demijohns tightly stoppered with rubber /
silicone followed by re-used Stelvin for a short period then do it.

I think if it were me I would go for proper 28 mm threaded bottles from
the off, no intermediate 5L storage. So long as you use new caps each
cycle these are fine. I have had both juice (negative pressure) and
carbonated cider (positive pressure) in such bottles for 4 years with no
obvious gas leakage in or out at all. Can't speak for wine but I don't
see why it should be so very different.

Stelvin is brilliant when first applied - in fact it is such a good
closure compared to cork that I understand the makers of wines such as
Sauvignon Blanc have to encourage a bit more deliberate oxidation to
avoid 'reduction flavours' occurring under Stelvin. But once the seal is
broken the cap is so mechanically flimsy that you are in the 'lap of the
gods' whether or not you get a good repeat seal. I wouldn't trust it for
any length of time. Whereas with a 28 mm thread bottle and a new cap
each time you have a decent depth of wadding to form a perfect new seal.

That's how I see it.

Andrew

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[pauls...@lineone.net]

I want to filter my cider as quickly as possible yet removing as much lees as possible. What sort of mesh/devices etc
do people use?
Many Thanks
Paul

[Raymond Blockley]

Nothing apart from time...

 

Cheers, Ray

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Ray B

[M Douglas]

Ray Buckley queried faster methods of filtering and although I haven't had occasion to use this, I suggest getting hold of 'Scientific Winemaking' by J.R.Mitchell - an Amateur Winemaker publication - wherein on pages 79 and 80 is a  full  description of filtration using a suction pump. It sounds as if it would be useful although it does involve getting a few bits of equipment together to set it up.

I hope this is helpful and I'd be interested to hear if it does work satisfactorily

Incidentally the book carries the identification number

SBN 9 900841 427 which may help in locating a copy if necessary. Good luck with it anyway!

Mike Douglas

[mann bataan]

hey sorry but i am also facing a problem with fermentation. sg is 995
at the moment and tss is 3.9 degree brix but i thnk sugar is at the
bottom and fermentation also stops.. what to do now? can any body help
me out of it?

[Andrew Lea]

On 15/03/2012 00:01, M Douglas wrote:
> Ray Buckley queried faster methods of filtering and although I haven't
> had occasion to use this, I suggest getting hold of 'Scientific
> Winemaking' by J.R.Mitchell - an Amateur Winemaker publication - wherein
> on pages 79 and 80 is a full description of filtration using a suction
> pump.

With great respect that book is 40 years old and the technology
described is wildly out of date. If a person *really* wants to filter,
then they buy kit like this http://www.vigoltd.com/mini-jet-filter.php
or this http://www.vigoltd.com/20cm-plate-filter.php at a larger scale.

Filtration on a small scale is frankly an awkward business and for the
amateur or small commercial cider maker much can be achieved simply by
*time* as Ray (Blockley) said. There is often no real need to filter.

[Raymond Blockley]

Nooooooo! Ray BLOCKLEY (moi - you'll be calling me 'Roy' next...) did not query fast filtering! Don't start spreading nasty dirty rumours that I resort to filtering or any other get-fast-results methods!!! Time is all I use, as I posted. :-)

 

That aside, there are indeed a number of fast filters (ie: suction) that you can get hold of from Home Brew shops and wine-makers supplies. There are also some excellent gravity ones if you can wait a couple of minutes longer. 

 

BUT as someone who made wine for many years and initially succumbed to the polished, crystal-clear school of thought, I found that the hobby type of filters stripped out much more, including flavour and colour, and maybe a certain something. I turned to fining as a better way of getting clear wines but keeping the full taste, colour and body.

 

I have no experience of any other types of filter as I don't use them on my ciders.

 

Cheers, Ray.

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Ray B

[Cheshire Matt]

There can't be sugar if sg is <1, surely?? And if you have solids at the
bottom, why van't you siphon the clear (?) cider off the top? It's called
racking.

[Andrew Lea]

On 15/03/2012 04:26, mann bataan wrote:
> hey sorry but i am also facing a problem with fermentation. sg is 995
> at the moment and tss is 3.9 degree brix but i thnk sugar is at the
> bottom and fermentation also stops.. what to do now? can any body help
> me out of it?
>

It would have been courteous to start a new thread for this and not just
to hijack someone else's. (I have changed the title to reflect this).

Anyway the simple answer is that your fermentation is finished. You
cannot use a refractometer to take a valid Brix reading in cider, only
in juice.

[Cheshire Matt]

Same here. 'quickly' and 'remove a lot' sound mutually exclusive to me -
can't do one AND the other without some serious intervention and
compromising elsewhere.

If you've got a customer/competition or whatever that demands clear cider
in March, then the use of the small word 'No' is what us slaves to the pace
of real cider making get used to saying. :)

[Raymond Blockley]

Oh yes, better qualify that last post by stating that I don't use finings per se in my ciders either. The only thing I use on occasion (ie: rarely) depending on the nature of the fruit, is a pectin-destroying enzyme.

 

Cheers, Ray

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Ray B

[mann bataan]

sorry i ll keep in mind next time. by the way thnx