SmokinDawg
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2008
- Messages
- 102
- Reaction score
- 1
I read this article in winemaker magazine and I was wondering what everyone thought:
So, should you soak your corks or not before you use them? If you are
fortunate enough to order your corks direct from the factory, in a
sealed bag, you don’t need to, unless it helps you slip the cork into
the bottle easier with your hand corker. Similarly, if you buy your
corks from a winemaking supply store that you know has a lot of
customers and a high turnover of their cork inventory, you probably
don’t need to rinse or soak your corks either. If, however, you aren’t
in either of the above camps and don’t know how long your corks have
been exposed to the air, where they came from or how old they are, it
might be a good idea — or at the least it’ll make you feel like you’re
doing something to help.
I think this is where most of our good-intentioned soaking of corks
comes from. Since we know we may have to (at least in some situations)
accept less-than-ideal corks, we feel that a quick dip in a 70 ppm
sulfite solution spiked with 1 g/L of tartaric acid (one of the many
sulfite cocktails I’ve seen in use) may at least rinse the dust away
and retard some surface-dwelling bad guys. Unfortunately, the reality
is that once a cork has dried out and a mold colony has invaded its
nooks and crannies, there’s very little that a winemaker can do,
whether working for a top of the line facility or simply making it work
in their garage. Even a rigorous wash in a sulfite solution, or any
other available sanitizing compound — no matter how strong — won’t be
able to do much. Wash corks in water that isn’t sulfited and you may
even increase the chance of infecting your corks by providing
opportunistic microorganisms with a source of moisture.
</font>
So, should you soak your corks or not before you use them? If you are
fortunate enough to order your corks direct from the factory, in a
sealed bag, you don’t need to, unless it helps you slip the cork into
the bottle easier with your hand corker. Similarly, if you buy your
corks from a winemaking supply store that you know has a lot of
customers and a high turnover of their cork inventory, you probably
don’t need to rinse or soak your corks either. If, however, you aren’t
in either of the above camps and don’t know how long your corks have
been exposed to the air, where they came from or how old they are, it
might be a good idea — or at the least it’ll make you feel like you’re
doing something to help.
I think this is where most of our good-intentioned soaking of corks
comes from. Since we know we may have to (at least in some situations)
accept less-than-ideal corks, we feel that a quick dip in a 70 ppm
sulfite solution spiked with 1 g/L of tartaric acid (one of the many
sulfite cocktails I’ve seen in use) may at least rinse the dust away
and retard some surface-dwelling bad guys. Unfortunately, the reality
is that once a cork has dried out and a mold colony has invaded its
nooks and crannies, there’s very little that a winemaker can do,
whether working for a top of the line facility or simply making it work
in their garage. Even a rigorous wash in a sulfite solution, or any
other available sanitizing compound — no matter how strong — won’t be
able to do much. Wash corks in water that isn’t sulfited and you may
even increase the chance of infecting your corks by providing
opportunistic microorganisms with a source of moisture.
</font>
