whino-wino
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I've been reading through the tips and there are some really good ones on here. Not sure how mine will stack up with the rest. In fact, most of you probably already know these things. Anyway, here goes:
Tip #1 - Getting rid of those pesky air bubbles in your bottle when bottling your wine.
Before you insert the cork, put in a vacu-vin wine stopper and give it couple of pumps. Some bubbles will rise up immediately, but not many (unless you forgot to de-gas). You will probablysee some bubbles form on the side of the bottle that won't want to come up. Lift the bottle and then give it a gentle tap on the counter top or table top. All the bubbles will rise up almost instantly and as soon as you release the vacuum they dissapear like magic. Proceed with corking. I do this with all of my bottles, even if I don't see bubbles.
Tip #2 - Easy way to shrink capsules:
I have a tea pot that I fill about 1/4 with water and then put it on the front burner of the stove. Turn the heat up to boiling. Once it starts to boil, lower the heat to simmer and you should have a nice little steam jet coming from the spout. Use a fork to hold the capsule on the bottle. Start at the top of the bottle in line with the seam on the capsule and run it from top to bottom. Once this part is shrunk, put the fork down, start again at the top of the bottle and rotate it while working toward the bottom of the capsule. I know this sounds like a lot, but it only takes a few seconds. If you follow the seam before shrinking the rest the capsule will shrink on very uniformly.
Edit -
I happened to be doing this tonight, so I took some pics:
Tip #3 - Getting that nasty sticky glue off of used bottles.
I discussed this one in another post, but here it is again. If you are trying to remove labels from bottles and run into one that has really sticky glue under the label, here is a good way to get it off, but some may not want to try it as it involves using a pretty nasty chemical. I take a dull knife and dip it in water. Then I scrape as much of the glue off as I can. Run the knife from the top of where the label was down to the bottom and work your way across the area where the label was. (Going from top to bottom and working from left to right or right to left) Leave the little globs of glue at the bottom as you work across. Once you get all the way across, dip the knife and your hand in water again (this will keep the glue from wanting to stick to you) and scrape around the bottom edge of the glued area. This will lift a nice big blob of glue off. Now that you have most of the glue off, spray the area with gasket remover (can be purchased at your local auto parts store). Let it sit for about 10 minutes and then wipe it off with a paper towel. Gasket eliminator is water soluble so all you need to do now is rinse the bottle off and dry it. If there is still a small amount of glue left, spray directly on the glue again, but this time you shouldn't have to wait as long. Give it about a minute and wipe it off again. This works 99% of the time, but only on the really sticky stuff. For some reason it does not work on dried glue but that's O.K. A copper scouring pad will take the dried stuff off in about 2 seconds when the bottle is held under water. One more note, when using gasket eliminator spray it in a very well ventilated area and away from any source of heat. I have a vent in my laundry room just like the ones in the bathrooms. I hit the button and it will suck the fumes right out. If you don't have a room with an automatic vent, then you will probably want to do this outside. Oh, it can irritate the skin too so change your clothes when you are done and wash your arms and hands.
Tip #4 - Have clean bottles on hand when it's time to bottle
I collect most of my wine bottles from a local restaurant. I pick them up twice a week and usually get 10 to 20 bottles a week. If you remove the labels and wash the bottles the same day you bring them home you will most likely have a good supply of clean bottles on hand when it comes time to bottle a batch. After cleaning I store them upside down in wine boxes to keep the nasties out (I believe this tip has already been suggested, but it's a good one). I also sort the bottles by color, style and height. By doing this I almost always have enough of the same bottles when doing a batch. Also, since they are stored this way all you need to do is give them a quick blast of sulphite on your bottle rinser/vinator and then a quick rinse and you're ready to go. Cleaning the bottles as soon as you get them takes little time when you only have to do 5 to 10 at a time and it saves you the painstaking labor of having to de-label and wash 30 or more all at once for your batch or batches.
Tip #5 - A steady supply of bottles.-
As I just mentioned, I collect my bottles from a local restaurant. This is easy to do. Just stop in and ask. They will usually accomodate you. One thing I also did was to bring in a thank you note with a list of all the wines that I had available, and how many of each kind was available. I also included detailed descriptions with each wine (%abv, white or red, light, med, or full bodied, dry, semi-dry or sweet, etc). I included a sign up sheet for them to post somewhere in the back of the restaurant so that their employees could each sign up for a bottle. After collecting the sheet, I used bottle tags and wrote the name of each person who claimed a bottle on a tag. Then I put the tags on the bottles and simply dropped them off. The next time I came in to collect bottles, they gave me a $25 gift certificate for their restaurant. Pretty cool.
Tip #6 - One more way to de-gas
Take a twin-bubble airlock and insert it into your bung on the carboy. Leavethe airlockempty. Remove the little red cap and insert a vacu-vin wine stopper into the top of the airlock (fits perfectly). Now take your vacu-vin pump and start pumping. This can be a bit of a workout, but it works really well. I usually give it about 50 pumps, release the pressure and give it 50 more. After that let it sit for about an hour and pump it up one more time until bubbles start to come up again(usually only takes about 20 pumps at this point). Leave it over night and the next day pump it up again. This time you will see really big bubbles. Not sure what these are but I don't think it is CO2. Anyway, let that sit with the vacuum for the day and by the end of the day you can run your gas whip through with a cordless drill just for good measure and to test if there's any gas left. I haven'tseen anybubbles with the gas whip after doing this yetso it must be working just fine. I got this idea recently after reading about the brake bleeders that some of you are using. Same thing but without the meter.
Edit - I also happened to be doing this tonight on a 1 gallon batch of Navel Orange wine.
Here's the set up:
Give it some pumps:
Not much foam in this one, but it did get quite a few bubbles:
This last part isn't really a tip, it's more of an idea (or a brain fart). As I've been cleaning bottles I've come to look forward to cleaning certain brands more than others based on how easy it is to remove the labels. Since we winemakers tend to write everything down, I've started to keep a log of this. In the future I hope to have a pretty good list to share with the rest of you. Not sure if it will help anybody, but if you come across a huge supply of bottles and can't take all of them (after a wedding reception or something) you might be able to use the list to pick out the easiest ones to remove labels from. I also have a couple of friends that are into the craft and I could simply set aside the harder ones to give to them, in exchange for a bottle or two of thier wines of course.
Edited by: whino-wino
Tip #1 - Getting rid of those pesky air bubbles in your bottle when bottling your wine.
Before you insert the cork, put in a vacu-vin wine stopper and give it couple of pumps. Some bubbles will rise up immediately, but not many (unless you forgot to de-gas). You will probablysee some bubbles form on the side of the bottle that won't want to come up. Lift the bottle and then give it a gentle tap on the counter top or table top. All the bubbles will rise up almost instantly and as soon as you release the vacuum they dissapear like magic. Proceed with corking. I do this with all of my bottles, even if I don't see bubbles.
Tip #2 - Easy way to shrink capsules:
I have a tea pot that I fill about 1/4 with water and then put it on the front burner of the stove. Turn the heat up to boiling. Once it starts to boil, lower the heat to simmer and you should have a nice little steam jet coming from the spout. Use a fork to hold the capsule on the bottle. Start at the top of the bottle in line with the seam on the capsule and run it from top to bottom. Once this part is shrunk, put the fork down, start again at the top of the bottle and rotate it while working toward the bottom of the capsule. I know this sounds like a lot, but it only takes a few seconds. If you follow the seam before shrinking the rest the capsule will shrink on very uniformly.
Edit -
I happened to be doing this tonight, so I took some pics:
Tip #3 - Getting that nasty sticky glue off of used bottles.
I discussed this one in another post, but here it is again. If you are trying to remove labels from bottles and run into one that has really sticky glue under the label, here is a good way to get it off, but some may not want to try it as it involves using a pretty nasty chemical. I take a dull knife and dip it in water. Then I scrape as much of the glue off as I can. Run the knife from the top of where the label was down to the bottom and work your way across the area where the label was. (Going from top to bottom and working from left to right or right to left) Leave the little globs of glue at the bottom as you work across. Once you get all the way across, dip the knife and your hand in water again (this will keep the glue from wanting to stick to you) and scrape around the bottom edge of the glued area. This will lift a nice big blob of glue off. Now that you have most of the glue off, spray the area with gasket remover (can be purchased at your local auto parts store). Let it sit for about 10 minutes and then wipe it off with a paper towel. Gasket eliminator is water soluble so all you need to do now is rinse the bottle off and dry it. If there is still a small amount of glue left, spray directly on the glue again, but this time you shouldn't have to wait as long. Give it about a minute and wipe it off again. This works 99% of the time, but only on the really sticky stuff. For some reason it does not work on dried glue but that's O.K. A copper scouring pad will take the dried stuff off in about 2 seconds when the bottle is held under water. One more note, when using gasket eliminator spray it in a very well ventilated area and away from any source of heat. I have a vent in my laundry room just like the ones in the bathrooms. I hit the button and it will suck the fumes right out. If you don't have a room with an automatic vent, then you will probably want to do this outside. Oh, it can irritate the skin too so change your clothes when you are done and wash your arms and hands.
Tip #4 - Have clean bottles on hand when it's time to bottle
I collect most of my wine bottles from a local restaurant. I pick them up twice a week and usually get 10 to 20 bottles a week. If you remove the labels and wash the bottles the same day you bring them home you will most likely have a good supply of clean bottles on hand when it comes time to bottle a batch. After cleaning I store them upside down in wine boxes to keep the nasties out (I believe this tip has already been suggested, but it's a good one). I also sort the bottles by color, style and height. By doing this I almost always have enough of the same bottles when doing a batch. Also, since they are stored this way all you need to do is give them a quick blast of sulphite on your bottle rinser/vinator and then a quick rinse and you're ready to go. Cleaning the bottles as soon as you get them takes little time when you only have to do 5 to 10 at a time and it saves you the painstaking labor of having to de-label and wash 30 or more all at once for your batch or batches.
Tip #5 - A steady supply of bottles.-
As I just mentioned, I collect my bottles from a local restaurant. This is easy to do. Just stop in and ask. They will usually accomodate you. One thing I also did was to bring in a thank you note with a list of all the wines that I had available, and how many of each kind was available. I also included detailed descriptions with each wine (%abv, white or red, light, med, or full bodied, dry, semi-dry or sweet, etc). I included a sign up sheet for them to post somewhere in the back of the restaurant so that their employees could each sign up for a bottle. After collecting the sheet, I used bottle tags and wrote the name of each person who claimed a bottle on a tag. Then I put the tags on the bottles and simply dropped them off. The next time I came in to collect bottles, they gave me a $25 gift certificate for their restaurant. Pretty cool.
Tip #6 - One more way to de-gas
Take a twin-bubble airlock and insert it into your bung on the carboy. Leavethe airlockempty. Remove the little red cap and insert a vacu-vin wine stopper into the top of the airlock (fits perfectly). Now take your vacu-vin pump and start pumping. This can be a bit of a workout, but it works really well. I usually give it about 50 pumps, release the pressure and give it 50 more. After that let it sit for about an hour and pump it up one more time until bubbles start to come up again(usually only takes about 20 pumps at this point). Leave it over night and the next day pump it up again. This time you will see really big bubbles. Not sure what these are but I don't think it is CO2. Anyway, let that sit with the vacuum for the day and by the end of the day you can run your gas whip through with a cordless drill just for good measure and to test if there's any gas left. I haven'tseen anybubbles with the gas whip after doing this yetso it must be working just fine. I got this idea recently after reading about the brake bleeders that some of you are using. Same thing but without the meter.
Edit - I also happened to be doing this tonight on a 1 gallon batch of Navel Orange wine.
Here's the set up:
Give it some pumps:
Not much foam in this one, but it did get quite a few bubbles:
This last part isn't really a tip, it's more of an idea (or a brain fart). As I've been cleaning bottles I've come to look forward to cleaning certain brands more than others based on how easy it is to remove the labels. Since we winemakers tend to write everything down, I've started to keep a log of this. In the future I hope to have a pretty good list to share with the rest of you. Not sure if it will help anybody, but if you come across a huge supply of bottles and can't take all of them (after a wedding reception or something) you might be able to use the list to pick out the easiest ones to remove labels from. I also have a couple of friends that are into the craft and I could simply set aside the harder ones to give to them, in exchange for a bottle or two of thier wines of course.
