artificial Cork

[Rifleman]

I am new to home wine making(2 years) and have only bottled two 5 gallon batches, both with natural corks. All turned out well and I will continue to use these as I have a small supply. But, I have recently become interested in the SupremeCorq X2 and was wondering if anyone has had experience with this artificial stopper? Thanks in advance for the advice.

 

[Torch404]

I've never used them, but I hear you need a floor corker or you risk scoring the cork and having a poor seal.

 

[Racer]

Synthetic corks do require more effort to insert into bottles so floor corkers are a must in order to get them properly into the bottles. Wear on equipment can get to floor corkers too. I'm starting to see creases in my nomacorcs and have started to switch back to natural corks to slow up wearing out the jaws on my Italian(brass jawed) floor corker.

 

[Wade E]

If using synthetic corks I recommend havingthe Italian floor corker as they have the metal Iris(the part that squeezes the cork). The plastic iris on the portuguese is sometimes to heavy duty enough to compress some of these synthetic corks and stays open and the joints and that leaves a crease in the cork making leakers. I use the perfect agglomerate corks which are a blendof sythetic and natural and I love them, you get the best of both worlds.
http://www.finevinewines.com/ProdDetA.asp?PartNumber=2320A

 

[NSwiner]

i'm only new to this but the last batch we did I used half real cork & half synthetic corks since we plan on aging this batch . Have a couple we will drink while we wait . The only thing I worried about was the dimples in synthetic corks but I shrink sealed them all so now it's a guessing game noe what I'm opening lol .

 

[surlees]

Natural corks are the longest lived and most expensive depending on grade. The following company shows all types of corks and rates their longevity:

http://www.widgetco.com/wine-corks

Fred