1st time using Shrink caps

[JustJoe]

I use caps and labels to make it easy to pick out the wine I am looking for. Black cap is grape, red is cherry, yellow is rhubarb, etc. I pull out a bottle by the color of the cap and check the label for the year. Also the caps look nice on the wine I give away.

 

[balatonwine]

A bit off topic, but for that good look I prefer dipping the bottle top in sealing wax.

To simply ID wines in similar looking bottles stored in my cellar, I will use just a drop or two of different colored wax on the cork rather than doing a full end dip.

 

[glennwing]

I use them on all my wine bottles. I bottle each batch in 2 different size bottles. Half in regular wine bottles and half in clear 12ounce soda bottles. I usually give people a sampler of small bottles to try and if they like a certain wine I give them a regular sized bottle. The shrink top really improves the look on the small bottles with bottle caps. My wife also likes the small bottles. Enough for a couple glasses and she can switch wines every day and not have large bottles in the fridge.
I make, almost exclusively, fruit wines and bottles caps work fine for wines that are consumed over a year or two.

 

[winemaker81]

I use a blow dryer to shrink the capsules and get mixed results. Most of the time the capsules look really good, but on occasion they are distorted. Especially irritating is one bright red capsule where I can't get it to shrink evenly. That wouldn't be bad except I purchased a lot of 500 ...

Next batch I'm trying the boiling water. If it works well, I'll purchase that tool for holding the bottles.

Why use capsules? I apply capsules to keep the cork and the top of the bottle clean. My "cellar" is very clean, but bottles setting for a year+ develop dust and stuff. I'm in central NC, so spiders are a foundation of existence -- webs on the bottles irritates me and require washing the top of the bottle before opening.

Plus the presentation is much nicer.

Side note -- I'm not fond of spiders (insects don't bother me) and I only like 1 species of spider -- the flat ones. Those are ok. Sometimes messy, but ok.

 

[DizzyIzzy]

I use a blow dryer to shrink the capsules and get mixed results. Most of the time the capsules look really good, but on occasion they are distorted. Especially irritating is one bright red capsule where I can't get it to shrink evenly. That wouldn't be bad except I purchased a lot of 500 ...

Next batch I'm trying the boiling water. If it works well, I'll purchase that tool for holding the bottles.

Why use capsules? I apply capsules to keep the cork and the top of the bottle clean. My "cellar" is very clean, but bottles setting for a year+ develop dust and stuff. I'm in central NC, so spiders are a foundation of existence -- webs on the bottles irritates me and require washing the top of the bottle before opening.

Plus the presentation is much nicer.

Side note -- I'm not fond of spiders (insects don't bother me) and I only like 1 species of spider -- the flat ones. Those are ok. Sometimes messy, but ok.

I use a blow dryer as well. I have had good success drying from the top down with the dryer. I can see the shrink wrap conform to the bottle, then with my fingers I flatten the wrap further all while the dryer is on. I hope this helps..................................................DizzyIzzy

 

[DizzyIzzy]

I use caps and labels to make it easy to pick out the wine I am looking for. Black cap is grape, red is cherry, yellow is rhubarb, etc. I pull out a bottle by the color of the cap and check the label for the year. Also the caps look nice on the wine I give away.

I make too many combinations of fruit wines for your system to work for me. Instead, I have a coding system that I write on the top of the cork i.e., Raspberry/Peach I will code RP, or Pomegranate Plum, PP..........You get the picture. When I want to give a bottle away is when I apply a label and a shrink cap. This system has worked quite well for me for the 20+ types of wine that I have made, and when I make a second bath of the same wine I will code it RP2 or PP2, etc....................................Hope you, or others, find this useful........................................................DizzyIzzy

 

[Fencepost]

I use the boiling water method and made a wire holder, that holds the shrink cap in place and rests agains the bottle as I pick it up... works great, took about 5 minuets to make, had the wire on hand.

 

[winemaker81]

I tried the boiling water method tonight on shiny red capsules that consistently fail to shrink evenly with a blowdryer, often having bubbles and even being discolored. This was an improvement, as the 5 bottles I did had no discoloration, but while they shrank more consistently, I had to "adjust" them with a blowdryer. IMO the problem is the capsules -- the boiling water did a better job. I'm going to experiment with other capsules to see how it works.

Unfortunately I have a LOT of the red capsules, so they'll be used with wines I care less about.

 

[JustJoe]

I use a heat gun which is like a blow dryer on steroids. It has worked on every cap I have tried, including some pretty lousy ones I got on Amazon.

 

[Bmd2k1]

I put shrink caps on all my bottles. I use boiling water to shrink mine. If you're going to use boiling water, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these. It also doubles as decapper for wine kit juice bags.

https://www.amazon.com/E-C-Kraus-DE-BFRY-KSCS-Heat-Shrink-Capsule/dp/B00838TZA2

Very cool....gonna snag one of those gadgets! Thanks for posting it.

Cheers!

 

[Jim Welch]

I put shrink caps on all my bottles. I use boiling water to shrink mine. If you're going to use boiling water, do yourself a favor and pick up one of these. It also doubles as decapper for wine kit juice bags.

https://www.amazon.com/E-C-Kraus-DE-BFRY-KSCS-Heat-Shrink-Capsule/dp/B00838TZA2

Received mine yesterday, Have 2 batches ready to bottle as soon as I find time. Can't wait to use it...

 

[winemaker81]

Very cool....gonna snag one of those gadgets! Thanks for posting it.

I'm debating is I want one. When I did my test with 5 bottles, I held the bottom of the capsule with a finger and slowly lowered it into the water. Once the bottom part (from my POV, it was the actually the top of the bottle) shrank I moved my finger up and submerged the bottle so the capsule was completely submerged. This took only a few seconds.

 

[VinesnBines]

I'm debating is I want one. When I did my test with 5 bottles, I held the bottom of the capsule with a finger and slowly lowered it into the water. Once the bottom part (from my POV, it was the actually the top of the bottle) shrank I moved my finger up and submerged the bottle so the capsule was completely submerged. This took only a few seconds.

I use the boiling water method, just as winemaker 81 described (finger holding the capsule until the top molds to the bottle). If a shrink cap seems distorted, I reheat the water and dip again. I was worried about the heat on the bottle neck but no problems so far. A blow dryer never worked for the cheap capsules I bought.

 

[cmason1957]

When I have put capsules on, which isn't all that often. The tool shown above really makes it trivial. None are ever distorted.

 

[Ajmassa]

I just use a heat gun and a piece of metal I bent up to keep the cap in place. Works perfect every time. Just don’t burn it!

Tool was actually the handle to a cheap strainer that broke off. Living a good 2nd life as cap holder thing.