Homemade riddling rack

[BarrelMonkey]

My riddling rack finally went into service as I've started to riddle 24 bottles of my 2022 Blanc de Noir in readiness for the holidays:




The platform pivots around a piano hinge and can be set at 5 angles: in round numbers, 25, 35, 45, 60 and 75 degrees. As shown above I initially designed it to riddle a case at a time; however if you turn the wine boxes the other way around it's the perfect size for two:



There's a compression strap around the wine boxes - it's about 100lb when fully loaded...

I encountered a problem when I loaded up my regular wine boxes. The bottles in the middle column of each box were fine, but if I pulled out one of the lower outside bottles (as one does during the riddling process), the bottles above would come crashing down through the cardboard spacers. D'oh! So I got a sheet of hardboard and made some wooden dividers:



I expect to be riddling for about 3 weeks, followed by a few more days shaking the bottles with the cap end down. Then disgorging, followed by a few weeks recovery before serving as part of the Thanksgiving festivities

 

[Garagista]

I have nothing to say but WOW.

 

[Rice_Guy]

One of the club members does sparkling and suggests a glocol bath in the freezer instead of salt brine , , , when you get to that stage.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

One of the club members does sparkling and suggests a glocol bath in the freezer instead of salt brine , , , when you get to that stage.

Yes, glycol works well - it's what's used in commercial neck freezers. Food grade (propylene) glycol is pretty expensive, though I expect it can be reused.

 

[Greg Corey]

I Love the DIY rack. Try to get video of your disgorging festivities. It's always fun to have a video record of that one bottle that goes a little haywire.

 

[BarrelMonkey]

Today was disgorging day... We disgorged 24 bottles of my 2022 Blanc de Noir. Here is the disgorging line:



1. Neck freezer (-5F at time of starting)
2. Dunk bucket (to remove salt water residue from bottles)
3. Bottle opener!
4. Dosage and topping solutions with pipette
5. Crown capper

Neck freezer consisted of ice + rock salt in a 2:1 ratio by weight. As time went by, I guess the smaller ice chunks and salt sank to the bottom, so I ended up removing the wooden rack and just jamming the bottles in the ice for the last few.

I tried uploading a video of popping a bottle, but it looks like the file extension (mp4) isn't supported

Edit: Uploaded video to 'Media'... https://www.winemakingtalk.com/media/pop-mp4.4810/