Who wants to help out the new guy?

[Bert]

It will be OK...when that happens the wine usually settles out pretty quick..give it a week or two and you'll see sediment in the bottom again...Masta's little trick would be good to use again too...

 

[Sebastian]

I just bottled my first coupla cases of the white zin - found that boiling the
corks made the handcorking go MUCH easier (although i'll need to find an
alternative for the old vine red zin i started a couple of weeks ago - from
what i can glean off the boards, boiling the cheapo corks seems to be a
great way to shorten their shelf life...).

BIG ol thanks to all. Since I can't quite reasonably send a bar of chocolate
out to everyone who helped (these are 10 lb bars mind you.. shipping to all
of you will break me), i could send a few to george if he's willing to take
them and distribute them to ya'll when you're next shipments from him
occur...

 

[Funky Fish]

Sebastian,


I can't help but cringing a bit when you said "boiling." I've never boiled my corks before, but I have heard on several occasions of someone opening a bottle, having the cork fall apart

, and saying that they boiled the corks when they put them in. I'm hoping it's a coincidence, though, and that this won't happen to you. Luckily, with white zin, it's a wine that can be quaffed quickly.

How long have you had your hand corker? If it still looks new, you might check with your local homebrew shop and see if they will accept it and give you some monetary credit towards a floor corker. I don't know if they will or not, but it can't hurt to ask. Not that I'm saying there is anything wrong with the hand corker, but after I struggled through my first batch with one (and saw how small the iris in a floor corker could compress a cork), I quickly upgraded.

 

[Funky Fish]

last week i racked off the lees, and will give it another
week or so before bottling as i inadvertantly sucked some of the lees up and
re-clouded the whole shebang.

You had asked earlier if it's best to rack off the lees before bottling, and I see you found the answer!

It seems like I always get a small amount of lees sucked up on this transfer, but luckily it settles right back down so the wine can be bottled in a week or two.

 

[Sebastian]

I'd read the horror stories re: boiling and disintegration, but thought that
this batch will likely be gone in 2 month anyway. I'll likely just buy a floor
corker (they're only what, 50 bucks?) and be done with it. i'll probably go to
synthetic corks given what i really want are aging reds, and from what i've
been able to glean from the experiences of others, the synthetic corks age
better and give me more flexibility in storage position and RH conditions....