Humidity

[Boatboy24]

I've broken a couple corks opening bottles in recent weeks. I'm not sure if it is poor cork storage prior to bottling, or too little humidity in the house (or operator error on the corkscrew). We have a humidifier, but it maxes out at 45%. Our old place didn't have a humidifier and we were fine, so I'm pretty sure I may have just stored my corks in a less than perfect environment. I know that 'perfect' cellar conditions are 65% or so. I'm not going to get that here. But I'm just looking for some input on what your storage conditions are and your humidity, if you know it.

 

[sour_grapes]

Cannot help you with respect to humidity. I seem only to break OLD corks, like on 8 or 10 yr old wine. How old were yours?

The solution (for me for old corks) is to make damn sure I put the corkscrew ALL THE WAY in to the cork.

 

[Thig]

My biggest problem with broken corks is not driving the cork screw all the way into the cork. I don't like to go through the bottom because you end up with bits of cork in the wine, so sometimes I end up short and cork breaks.

 

[Johnd]

I'm not sure if your cork breaking problem is due to humidity or not, but offer info from my storage area. I currently have two wine storage cabinets, both at 55 degrees and humidity +/- 70%. I'm not sure where you are storing your bottles, but if it's in any kind of enclosed room (not sealed, but at least enclosed) and not too large, you can put a tray of water on the floor in the room to increase your humidity. Play around with the surface area of the water (bigger or smaller trays) until you find a size that gives the right humidity for your environment. Once you figure that out, just keep water in the tray.