Fold on cork after insertion

[distancerunner]

Pulled a cork on bottle we filled three months ago. Inserted with Italian floor corker with brass jaws.

Technique? Equipment?

 

[cmason1957]

Stuff happens?? It's hard to say what.

 

[CDrew]

That can happen. It looks like the cork is getting caught up on the metal lip. But it still sealed ok, so I would not worry about it.

 

[crushday]

I too use Nomacorc and, experienced the same with the same type of floor corker - the blue Italian one. I discovered that if I wait a few seconds, thereby giving time for the jaws to fully compress the cork before pushing down on the lever, I was able to minimize the delamination of the sidewall of the cork from the core material.

However, my biggest concern wasn't the end of the cork, wine side, like your picture illustrates. For me, using 47x23.5 corks, the concern was the crease on the sidewall of the cork left by the brass jaws in the corker. It created a small channel where wine, and I presume air, could easily flow. Undoubtedly, that would bring into question the long term storage of wine under these conditions. Something needed to change.

In my case, I got a new corker. I wanted to use the nomacorcs in the size previously sited. To that end, I purchased the Tenco pneumatic corker. Honestly, the cost was difficult to justify but I'm glad I got it. It does a great job and I can leave my upper body workouts at the gym.

 

[wineview]

Pulled a cork on bottle we filled three months ago. Inserted with Italian floor corker with brass jaws.

Technique? Equipment?

View attachment 83568

Was the cork pushed below the top of the bottle or was it sticking out?

 

[distancerunner]

Neither.

 

[wineview]

Neither.

So I should assume the cork was level with the top of the bottle.

 

[winemaker81]

Technique? Equipment?

Could be either. My Italian corker as the plunger a bit off center, so I push in a cork, rotate the bottle 180 degrees, and press again. Some get a bit deformed, but the vast majority are fine, and leaks are not a problem.

It created a small channel where wine, and I presume air, could easily flow. Undoubtedly, that would bring into question the long term storage of wine under these conditions. Something needed to change.

I've bottled ~900 bottles with Nomacorcs and have had 1 leak. My Italian corker sometimes produces a slight crease, but it's never been a problem. I checked my records -- I have 4 yo bottles that continue to exhibit no problems.

 

[distancerunner]

That's good to hear.

We had one leak that I know of using these corks on this bottling. Unfortunately my partner on this run got the leaker and didn't save the cork. He did not mention a "seam" along the side of the cork.

A friend of mine pointed out that he's seen the problem more often on bottles with a pronounced rim. Coincidentally, the cork in the pictures above came out of a bottle just like that.

I'm going to play with the corker and see if I can figure out where the corks are hitting and why the cork is catching an edge.

 

[stickman]

Some recycle bottles depending where they originated have smaller neck inside diameter, so this may increase the frequency of problems. However I believe the main issue is as @crushday indicated, the cork needs to be compressed and held for a second, then pushed quickly into the neck before the cork recovers to its original diameter.

 

[winemaker81]

While I was bottling Cherry-Cognac and Limoncello last night, it occurred to me that the problem may be the bottle not lining up with the hole in the corker. I always line up the bottle with the hole, but if the bottle is too far off center, it might cause problems.

 

[distancerunner]

While I was bottling Cherry-Cognac and Limoncello last night, it occurred to me that the problem may be the bottle not lining up with the hole in the corker. I always line up the bottle with the hole, but if the bottle is too far off center, it might cause problems.

Good point.

Twenty years or so ago I looked into the chamber to see if the bottles lined up with the hole. After a few to confirm all was good I quit doing that. That was the Portuguese corker. Hundreds of bottles later, I confess to loading corks before bottles. It's a heck of a lot faster. More importantly, it more or less guarantees that nothing will get into the bottle except the cork.

I found the Italian corker on Craigslist a couple of years ago. I cleaned and greased it, but never verified alignment. I'll check this, too.

Thanks.

 

[winemaker81]

The Italian corker is designed to pretty much put any cork in any bottle, so things don't line up automatically.

I've got a few bottles where the mouth is visibly smaller than typical -- cork goes right in! Storage takes more room, but the ease of use is hard to beat by any other manual corker.