A little assurance regarding bottle bombs

[Deim]

I have been using swing-tops and beer bottle caps for a year now, I want to switch to some clear wine bottles for better presentation, show off some color, clarity, etc.

I ordered T corks and the gold heat shrink pvc wraps.

I opened a beer bottle of stabilized mead started nov7 and by nov20 it hit 1.000sg, and by December 25, no airlock activity for a few days, even showed negative pressure from the cold. So i figured that there would be no gas left.So I bottled that batch with caps. After I stabilized the wine with sorbate.

Today, I opened a bottle with a pop. Light co2 haze. Poured it into one of my wine bottles, and it’s bubbling like flat champagne. Super tiny bubbles.

Is.. it safe to cork this?

These are 375ml wine bottles. Not pressure rated like the swing tops and beer bottles I have been using so far. I did notice the wine that came in these bubbles lightly at the rim of the glass. But this is much more then that

These are also synthetic rubbery t corks if that effects anything


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[Squatchy]

I have been using swing-tops and beer bottle caps for a year now, I want to switch to some clear wine bottles for better presentation, show off some color, clarity, etc.

I ordered T corks and the gold heat shrink pvc wraps.

I opened a beer bottle of stabilized mead started nov7 and by nov20 it hit 1.000sg, and by December 25, no airlock activity for a few days, even showed negative pressure from the cold. So i figured that there would be no gas left.So I bottled that batch with caps. After I stabilized the wine with sorbate.

Today, I opened a bottle with a pop. Light co2 haze. Poured it into one of my wine bottles, and it’s bubbling like flat champagne. Super tiny bubbles.

Is.. it safe to cork this?

These are 375ml wine bottles. Not pressure rated like the swing tops and beer bottles I have been using so far. I did notice the wine that came in these bubbles lightly at the rim of the glass. But this is much more then that

These are also synthetic rubbery t corks if that effects anything


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Sorbate is only designed for the yeast to not be able to reproduce. You have done nothing in regards to the yeast that is still alive in your must. You need to learn about potassium sulfites. Look it up

 

[Deim]

It has pot sorbate, metabii sulfate. And is reading 1.000… and has been for several weeks.

I’m asking about the residual carbonic acid coming out as co2…

I want to start using corked bottles to bottle age. Instead of my swing tops and beer bottles.
The wine bottle manufacturers self proclaim a lack of being able to handle pressure of any type.

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[4give]

Hi Deim. I'm not trying to be difficult or rude, but your post is a little confusing. It might be better to start from the beginning and provide details of what you've done so far, and in that order. I'm going to take a few guesses here on some things, and you can correct me if I'm making incorrect assumptions.
1 - Are you making mead, or wine? I ask since you stated that you stabilized the "wine". My understanding is limited, but there are differences in the treatment of mead and wine. I'll assume you're talking about mead since this is "GotMead".
2 - Your primary ferment seems to have ended around Nov 20, 2022. You let it sit until Dec 25.
3 - Did you rack at any point?
4 - Did you use any fining agents?
5 - You state, "So I bottled that batch with caps. After I stabilized with sorbate." When exactly did you attempt to stabilize the mead, and what did you use?
6 - Did you add anything else to the mead before bottling (e.g. back-sweeten with anything)?
7 - Did you filter the mead?
8 - I'm assuming you were also storing the mead at colder temps. How cold?
8a - If you were storing it at colder temps, did you bottle it when the mead was fairly cold?
8b - Did you move the bottles to a warmer location?

A couple of hypotheses/thoughts for you:
If you went from a cold location to a warmer location with a bottled product, or bottled it cold and moved it to a warmer location, the actual volume of the mead will change slightly, and the impact may be greater in a much smaller bottle. It may be that the difference is minimal, but this may be a partial reason for some increased pressure since water volume increases when temperature increases.
Another guess is that your mead is not stabilized. You may not have added enough k-meta, or the k-meta you have is old and/or impotent. The move to a warmer temp can wake the yeast back up and cause them to find any little bit of sugars/food possible. The yeast can actually take SG to below 1.000, but even just a tiny bit of fermentation can cause what you're seeing.
I know folks bottle 'fairly soon' after fermentation all the time. I don't. I like to let mine sit sealed up for awhile. I also use oak that I like it to age with for a few months. This also gives me the opportunity to taste and tweak - let it sit some more and repeat if necessary. Once I feel the mead is the best I can make it and it's good enough to drink, my last step is to filter and bottle the same day. I filter onto one last dose of k-meta, then I bottle from that container. This is typically no sooner than 4 months, and usually greater than 6 months.
I also know folks have experimented with no stabilizers whatsoever and didn't have a bottle bomb. However, I've heard far more stories of bottle bombs than successfully aging bottled, non-stabilized, meads.

 

[Deim]

I understand you guys are not being rude just covering basics.

1) Yes it’s mead

2/3) yes it ended in November, I racked it off the lees and let it continue to sit/ clear naturally. Until December. I then racked again before I bottled them into the beer bottles originally.

4)there are no fining agents, it did not need them.

5) these are the additives in in the racking receptacle during the second racking.

This is a one gallon test batch for a recipe.

1.8 grams of potassium sorbate

1 crushed tablet of potassium metabisulfite.

183ml of a 10% solution of malic acid. Using previously boiled and cooled water.

Mixed in while degassing

6) it is not back sweetened.

7) it is unfiltered,

8) the wine cellar room in the basement is 55degrees

8a) my fermenters are equipped with heaters. This one was set to 65 for lav71B. Fermentation was complete so this was turned off.

8b.) I did move the bottle into the kitchen. First floor stays at 65.


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[Chevette Girl]

Thanks for clarifying. I have had happen what 4give said, where you move the bottles from one temperature to another and all of a sudden things start bubbling. It's not only a volume change thing but also cooler temperatured liquid can hold more dissolved gas (think how slow to degas your refrigerated Coke can is to one opened at room temperature).

I also wait a couple days between stabilizing and bottling because I find that the sorbate/sulphite can cause some degassing as well, I've had airlocks that had been still for a month start bubbling again for a few hours after I stabilized a batch. You did say you had degassed the batch but it's possible at that low temperature there was still plenty in there, and you didn't state how you degassed... did you stir gently, did you use a power drill attachment, did you vacuum degas? Did it show much evidence of degassing while you were doing it?

I understand that you'd like to start bottling with corks, were you looking just at better presentation, or long-term storage? If presentation then you're probably fine, but if you're looking at a longer-term solution, unless research has changed since I last looked at it, T-corks aren't going to seal for as long as a full length cork or a bottle cap. Though if you don't shrink-wrap your t-corks, they will very likely pop out before a bottle explodes, but there's no guarantees.

And as to whether it's safe to bottle... well, I always do at least one bottle of each batch I'm not absolutely certain is stable with a swing top or screw cap so I can check to see if there's any hiss if I crack the seal every few weeks after bottling, so I know whether I need to refrigerate or uncork a batch for safety reasons. A SG of 1.000 does not mean that there is 0 sugar left, it means that the amount of sugar floating your hydrometer is equal to the amount of ethanol sinking it.

 

[Deim]

My current degassing method is simply stirring with a whisk somewhat vigorously. Bubbles and foam forms at the center of the swirling liquid, I do this for a few minutes until the foam no longer forms.

I have experimented with vacuum degassing using a bung and brake bleeding vacuum hand pump, it’s effect seemed mild after maintaining -25 for several hours on a half gallon test. I didn’t think it was worth pursuing for larger batches.

My motivation for switching to corks is entirely presentation. Although I recently discovered after I made this post that some champagne bottles take beer caps. and I think this actually looks nicer then the shrink wrap on top of tcork, as the tcork/shrink wrap looked ugly to me after doing a few.

But these are also meant to be sparkling unlike the wine I’m talking about in the original post. and are force carbonated to 4.6 volumes. I’m not putting that in a beer bottle.


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