[Cider Workshop] Leaking bottles

[Pessi]

I bottled a small batch of cider last week and now some of the bottles
are leaking when kept lying sideways. Now, I'm a bit worried its cased
by too much pressure already building up inside the bottles..

The cider was keeved and the fermentation settled around 1.022 and
thats when I bottled it. All the bottles are champagne bottles with a
natural cork and a 29mm crown cap on top of that! I'm kind of
surprised anything could even come through that combination of cap.

I opened a bottle yesterday and it was carbonated, but not quite to
champagne levels yet. Has anyone had leaking bottles before?

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[Andrew Lea]

Pessi wrote:
> I bottled a small batch of cider last week and now some of the bottles
> are leaking when kept lying sideways. Now, I'm a bit worried its cased
> by too much pressure already building up inside the bottles..
>
> The cider was keeved and the fermentation settled around 1.022 and
> thats when I bottled it. All the bottles are champagne bottles with a
> natural cork and a 29mm crown cap on top of that! I'm kind of
> surprised anything could even come through that combination of cap.

I cannot speak from personal experience but I feel sure that someone
either here or on Cider Digest previously mentioned problems of leakage
and poor sealing with 29 mm crown caps. I don't remember the details -
you could search the archives.

The other thing that occurs to me is that if you are using both driven
cork *and* crown caps you have in effect created a rigid 'piston' next
to the cap rather than a chamber of compressible gas, especially if the
cork is kept wet and hence very tight. Perhaps this is putting too much
strain on the centre of the cap and pushing it off? Perhaps it is wiser
to store the bottles upright as is often suggested for champagne? I have
seen regular sparkling wine bottles 'weep' from the cork when stored on
their sides, specially in hot weather as the pressure rises.

Andrew



--
Wittenham Hill Cider Page
http://www.cider.org.uk

[Roy Bailey]

In message <4BE9277A...@cider.org.uk>, Andrew Lea <y...@cider.org.uk>
writes

>Pessi wrote:
>> I bottled a small batch of cider last week and now some of the bottles
>> are leaking when kept lying sideways. Now, I'm a bit worried its cased
>> by too much pressure already building up inside the bottles..
>> The cider was keeved and the fermentation settled around 1.022 and
>> thats when I bottled it. All the bottles are champagne bottles with a
>> natural cork and a 29mm crown cap on top of that! I'm kind of
>> surprised anything could even come through that combination of cap.
>
>I cannot speak from personal experience but I feel sure that someone
>either here or on Cider Digest previously mentioned problems of leakage
>and poor sealing with 29 mm crown caps. I don't remember the details -
>you could search the archives.
>

I have been using champagne bottles with 29mm caps for several years now
and have had no trouble. Mind you, I don't aim for a high level of
carbonation. Using a cork and a crown cap sounds like belt and braces to
me!

The caps I use are the ones containing a plastic 'bidule' or insert,
which fits inside the neck of the bottle while the cap goes over the
outside. The only problem I had with these initially was getting the
'bidule' to go in. I found that putting the caps in very hot water for a
few seconds softened the plastic and they then went on without any
trouble.

A word of warning - not all champagne bottles, even the heavy-duty 900
gram ones, are the same. Some have a slightly smaller diameter top, and
the 29mm caps won't fit.

Roy.
--
Roy Bailey - Proprietor
The Lambourn Valley Cider Company
(Real cider from the Royal County)
<www.lambournvalleycider.co.uk>

[manchedave]

Pessi -

I think you are making life a bit complicated for yourself .
A simple crown cap and definitely storing upright should do you
fine .

You'll have to leave it much longer than a week to get more secondary
fermentation . The advantage of the simple crown cap over Ray's super
version with the "bidule" is that if you have more pressure than
expected it will escape around the rim of the cap -- much smaller
contact surface.

I think I mentioned before that my neighbour had a number of
explosions with the bidule version ?

PS Andrew -- I'll try and get my neighbour's recipe for farmhouse
pommeau - forgotten to several times already !

[Roy Bailey]

In message
<8355de19-0d54-4d8b...@a21g2000yqn.googlegroups.com>,
manchedave <davi...@wanadoo.fr> writes

>Pessi -
>
> I think you are making life a bit complicated for yourself .
>A simple crown cap and definitely storing upright should do you
>fine .
>
>You'll have to leave it much longer than a week to get more secondary
>fermentation . The advantage of the simple crown cap over Ray's super
>version with the "bidule"

My name is Roy.

--
Roy Bailey - Proprietor
The Lambourn Valley Cider Company
(Real cider from the Royal County)
<www.lambournvalleycider.co.uk>

[Nat West]

Might have been me who was complaining about poor 29mm crown cap sealing. I solved the problem with a few adjustments.

First off, I obviously separated my 26mm and 29mm champer bottles. Actually, I didn't separate them, but I (easily and quickly) trained myself to spot the difference. They're all mixed in together, and I have two crown cap bench cappers set up side-by-side during capping, one with 26mm bell and other with 29mm bell. The 26mm bottles are common in the US. (The cappers are also one-hand adjustable in height since the bottles vary greatly in that regard. They're Super Agata cappers.)

Secondly, I have not discovered that there are different diameter openings for 29mm bottles. I get bottles from recycling bins so get a wide range of origins. The one thing I have noticed (based on a recommendation from another list member) is that some bottles don't have a sharp enough lip to allow the cap to bite. I've included two pictures on this email. The one labeled "good" is, obviously, good - a "normal" 29mm bottle that takes a crown cap well. The second one labeled "bad" shows the more rounded lip offering no purchase to the crimped crown cap. Compare those two side-by-side. If I put a crown cap on a "bad" bottle, it may appear sealed, but with a bit of effort, I can spin the cap around the lip with my bare hands, which is bad. Sometimes I can even pop off the cap with my fingers, which might be a good party trick, but not good for storage.

Lastly, there is another difference I've noticed. The third picture called "cap" shows the plastic caps (with bails if carbonated) that I use for those rounded-lip bottles. They work for "most" bottles, but not all. There is at least one bottle maker that uses a thinner glass in the neck (although not appreciably thinner) such that the roughly-parallel sides of the plastic cap, the part that slips into the neck of the bottle, does not fit tightly. I.e. there is not a lot of friction when I'm pushing it in, and as a result, it is not a tight seal. When I accidentally fill one of those bottles, I put a plastic cap in it and put it in the fridge right away to drink.

This information may or may not pertain to non-US bottling. However, the majority of the bottles that I use proclaim non-US origins so I imagine it will be useful to aliens to some extent. Managing secondhand bottles is now a decent part of my cidermaking operation.

-Nat West, Portland Oregon

On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 2:46 AM, Andrew Lea <y...@cider.org.uk> wrote:

I cannot speak from personal experience but I feel sure that someone either here or on Cider Digest previously mentioned problems of leakage and poor sealing with 29 mm crown caps. I don't remember the details - you could search the archives.

[Dries Muylaert]

The caps I use are the ones containing a plastic 'bidule' or insert,
which fits inside the neck of the bottle while the cap goes over the
outside. The only problem I had with these initially was getting the
'bidule' to go in. I found that putting the caps in very hot water for a
few seconds softened the plastic and they then went on without any
trouble.

 

In an attempt to degorge my bottled cider I used the same procedure, because that is what these bidules are for. The combination closed very tight, there was no problem maturing the bottled cider vertically, even as the bidule pushed against the crown cap creating a visible "dome" in the middle of the crown cap.

A word of warning - not all champagne bottles, even the heavy-duty 900
gram ones, are the same. Some have a slightly smaller diameter top, and
the 29mm caps won't fit.

 

 

Indeed. Gave me some trouble. I use a mixture of champagne bottles obtained from restaurants. When after degorging I only closed with a crown cap about one out of 20 bottles lost pressure. Careful measuring revealed these had a smaller top. Btw, I do not see the point in using a bidule for the final product. A little bit like firing a gun when you remove the crown cap, not what you want the customer to experience.