Champagne Bottles - Regular Cork

[richmke]

I had a bunch of Champagne bottles, so i thought I would put them to good use. I bottled a batch of regular red wine, and put in a regular cork (not a champagne bottle mushroom cork).

Little did I know, but Champagne bottles have a taper. The inside of the neck of a bottle is narrower at the top, and widens a little as you go down. What that does: As the new cork expands, it is sucked into the bottle. Ideal if you have a mushroom cork, as it seals the top of the cork against the bottle.

However, I tend to countersink my corks a little, and over the course of a few hours, it sucked most of the straight corks into the bottle.

So, I had to re-cork about a dozen bottles, and I did not countersink them this time. So far, so good.

 

[sour_grapes]

Rich, you know you can use beer caps on Champagne bottles, right?

 

[Masbustelo]

If you use beer caps on the champagne bottles, how many volumes of pressure can the caps handle?

 

[FTC Wines]

Rich, I also have case of champagne bottles. I use a #8 cork, had problems pushing a #9 in. The necks are tapered but after 2 plus years in they show no issues. Roy

 

[richmke]

Rich, you know you can use beer caps on Champagne bottles, right?

I wonder about doing that for storage (cork and cap). Kind of takes away a little of the ambiance when giving it away, or opening it at a party.

I use a #8 cork, had problems pushing a #9 in.

My floor corker has no problems inserting the cork (I slick them up when sanitizing with starsan).

After 2 days, the corks inserted flush are fine. I think I have one cork (out of 20 bottles) that is not flush. I don't remember if it started that way, or if it got sucked in. In a few days, I'll replace any cork that is not flush.

 

[BernardSmith]

Rich, you know you can use beer caps on Champagne bottles, right?

I have a few Champagne-style bottles whose lipped necks (!) are larger than my beer caps so you might want to check that the cap fits before you fill too many bottles... just sayin'...

 

[msherretz]

Champagne caps

The bottle caps that fit champagne bottles are 29mm diameter. Larger than beer caps. In my experience, the caps will hold as much if not more pressure than the glass bottles. I have never had a leaker.
However, I have never had a good experience with trying to use wine corks on champagne bottles; or on screw cap bottles. That is why I stick with the crown caps or plastic caps with the wire bales.

 

[luanne50]

There are also plastic corks designed for champagne bottles.

 

[spaniel]

I used regular beer caps, they fit almost all champagne bottles fine. Worked great, ambiance aside.

 

[JohnT]

Rich, you know you can use beer caps on Champagne bottles, right?

Warning: Make sure that you have domestic champagne bottles if you decide to go with beer caps. European champagne bottles will not accommodate an American beer cap (most of the time). The European beer cap is a bit wider and its lip will crumble to glass dust when capped with an American cap.