I just bottled my strawberry wine that I have talked about on here several times. I stablized it with one campden tablet and sorbate on October 9. When I bottled the wine it was fizzy. Why would that be? Are these bottles going to blow if I keep them bottled as is?
Fizzy Wine
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Sounds like there is CO2 trapped in the wine. There is a danger of bottle exploding if this is so.
Auburn-Bob
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I actually prefer a little fizz to my wine. Not champagne by any means, just a little hint of fizz so it's not totally flat.
I agree with tj. C02 left in wine will not blow corks nor explode bottles. Now if there was refermentation in the bottle both of those things above would be very likely to happen!!! It sounds like you did not degas your wine well and that could also become a problem with your wine dropping lots of sediment in your bottles as even though your wine may have looked clear if it had gas still then by all means you more then likley still have a lot of very fine sediment still in your wine. When you degas your wine it needs to be done after fermentation is done an d at a temp of 75* or very close to that. Much cooler and it becomes very hard to get that gas out and once you bottle it
Well, I have never had a bottle explode on me, but my understanding is that the expolsions are caused by gas (CO2) inside the bottle. That would seem to beg the question, how does the bottle differentiate between CO2 left in the wine and CO2 generated by re-fermentation? Further, why are champagne bottles made from significantly thicker glass than regular wine bottles and why are their corks wired on? Seems like a big waste of time and money. Always eager to learn. 
AlFulchino
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i am in agreement w the restarting fermentation group...you added sorbate but there are two things to watch for...the sorbate be fresh but as important is that you give the sorbate some time in your carboy to do its job effectively...have your wine racked off of all lees before sorbate....and put the sorbate into a new carboy and then rack the wine into that so itgets nicely stirred in together...then let sit in my opinion a minimum of 2 weeks before you bottle....Happy Thanksgiving!
I agree that bottling a gassy wine will not cause the cork to pop.
I made a batch of camomile wine and when I racked it off the lees into a smaller carboy I had enough extra wine to fill up a wine bottle. Rather than putting an airlock on this bottle I decided to cork it instead. My intention was that I would use this bottle for topping up on subsequent rackings but I never did end up using this bottle.
This bottle had all the CO2 gas from fermentation as I never did degas this at all.
After about one year I finally opened the bottle to see how it was. I knew that it would be gassy so I used a wine saver pump to remove the CO2.
I could not believe how much gas there was in that bottle. The air bubbles coming out were very large and the bubbling went on forever.
Even with all that gas the cork did not budge at all.
Now if you have a refermentaion in a corked wine bottle the yeast will produce a tremendous amount of CO2. Far more than what the wine will be able to hold in suspention and this will cause the cork to pop.
I made a batch of camomile wine and when I racked it off the lees into a smaller carboy I had enough extra wine to fill up a wine bottle. Rather than putting an airlock on this bottle I decided to cork it instead. My intention was that I would use this bottle for topping up on subsequent rackings but I never did end up using this bottle.
This bottle had all the CO2 gas from fermentation as I never did degas this at all.
After about one year I finally opened the bottle to see how it was. I knew that it would be gassy so I used a wine saver pump to remove the CO2.
I could not believe how much gas there was in that bottle. The air bubbles coming out were very large and the bubbling went on forever.
Even with all that gas the cork did not budge at all.
Now if you have a refermentaion in a corked wine bottle the yeast will produce a tremendous amount of CO2. Far more than what the wine will be able to hold in suspention and this will cause the cork to pop.
Thanks so much for your answers. I thought I had degassed it. Don't you just splash rack it to do that? I suppose the temperature was probably not exactly right so maybe that was the problem. What happened with this wine is I sweetened it and (a couple of days later) realized that I had not stabilized it. So I poured all of the bottles back into a carboy (that was my attempt at splash racking) and stabilized it. So, really, I had screwed this one up from the beginning.
Well, I have never had a bottle explode on me, but my understanding is that the expolsions are caused by gas (CO2) inside the bottle. That would seem to beg the question, how does the bottle differentiate between CO2 left in the wine and CO2 generated by re-fermentation? Further, why are champagne bottles made from significantly thicker glass than regular wine bottles and why are their corks wired on? Seems like a big waste of time and money. Always eager to learn.
It is more then just bottling a gassy wine, sparkling wine / champagne is produced by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of the wine to effect carbonation. This is why it has those safety features you mentioned.
It might be possible to pop a cork from CO2, BUT you would have to add it to a wine that was cooled to a low temp (Forced carbonation) , and then cork it. If it warmed up it MIGHT push the cork out. that is the only way I could see it happening.
Has anyone ever measured the average PSI that is required to put a cork in to a bottle?
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Blackpage, de-gassing requires more than splash racking unless you do an awful lot of splash racking. There are some really great and free videos on the Wine Makers Toy Store site that illustrate de-gassing.
I have read what others have said about leaving gas in your wine bottles. For me, I will still recommend de-gassing thoroughly as a precaution. Changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature could at least cause the corks to pop. You should do what you feel comfortable doing. In any case, you know to whom to send the clean up bill if you have an accident.
I have read what others have said about leaving gas in your wine bottles. For me, I will still recommend de-gassing thoroughly as a precaution. Changes in atmospheric pressure and temperature could at least cause the corks to pop. You should do what you feel comfortable doing. In any case, you know to whom to send the clean up bill if you have an accident.
