Wine bottle filler

[Mike]

Hi. I've been homebrewing beer for over 3 years and began winemaking within the past year or so and love it. I've made 3 wine kits, all have turned out great.

I've decided to upgrade my equipment and plan on buying a Portugese floor corker. I'm also looking for a wine bottle filler since I'm tired of dealing with a standard spring bottle filler for bottling beer. It's annoying to use because of wine bottles' punts and messy.

I've found a few options and would like to see if anyone has opinions on either. The two options I've found are the Buon Vino Super Automatic Filler and the Ferrari Wine Bottle Filler.

Does anyone have experience with either? I can't post the links to them because this is my first post .

 

[smurfe]

Hi Mike and welcome aboard. I use the Buon filler and it works very good. I had issues with mine sticking open in the beginning and it was found there was a manufacturing defect and they fixed the issue. I have never heard a complaint about them since. Buon Vino products are pretty good products.

 

[Tom]

Here is what I use. The Boun Vino bottle filler

 

[Mike]

Thanks for your replies, guys. I think I'll pick up the Buon filler.

Is there any reason I shouldn't get a Portugese corker? Most of the reviews I read for it were positive, although I did read one that said it leaves indentations on the corks. Perhaps that person didn't have the corker setup properly. Lastly, is soaking corks in water with camden tablet(s) dissolved prior to bottling necessary?

 

[Tom]

If you plan on using just corks its fine with the plastic Iris. The Italian one is better if you are using synthetic ones and they have brass Iris and will not crease those corks.

 

[smurfe]

Depends on the type of corks you use and how you store them. WHat I do is take some of my sanitizer I have mixed up and put it in a bowl. I dump my corks in the bowl and then just take them out from there as I cork. It isn't necessary though. Many store their corks in a home made cork humidor and use a sulfite solution to keep the corks moist. If you do that and keep the solution fresh there is no need. Normally though if the corks are fresh in the pack from the supplier I just open, rinse them and insert. If they are fully synthetic corks which I mostly use now I insert them dry. If wet I have had the back pressure in the bottle push them up some.

I don't know what to tell you about that corker. I have used one before and had no issues. I have an Italian corker though and don't have much experience over that one time use on the one you are looking at. I will say it will be hands down better than a hand corker though.

 

[Mike]

Thanks. I imagine the Portugese corker will be satisfactory. It's about the half the price of its Italian counterpart.

 

[smurfe]

Mike, I have heard of them and looked at them at the retailer I buy from. He said they were OK but didn't always work as advertised. He said a lot of people returned them and bought the Boun Vino. I can't tell you from personal experience though how well they work. WHen I bought my starter kit it had the Boun Vino in it and thats what I have always used. I like the spring loaded filler you have now best for bottling beer. If I have wine bottles without the punt I use it for wine as well.

 

[Mike]

Just ordered the Portuguese corker and the Buon Vino filler.

 

[smurfe]

Sounds great! Where you shop at?

 

[St Allie]

Waves hello to mike from NZ..

great to see people buying more equipment !

hehheh

Allie

 

[Wade E]

I use the Port corker and it works great but i dont use synthetic corks. Never had any issues with it at all and Ive bottled thousands of bottles with it. My 5 year old son can even cork a bottle with it!

 

[Mike]

It's the first time I've purchased wine equipment online and I got the two items from homebrewit dot com as they had the cheapest prices.

 

[smurfe]

I have bought a few things from them. Decent company. They would be in my top five to buy from. Many of us shop at The Winemakers Toy Store as the customer service is second to none. Might give them a look sometime to. If you have a problem with anything George will practically drive to your house to swap the item. His prices are pretty competitive with anyone out there as well. Quality Wine and Ale is a good company though.

Always recommend that one don't buy strictly on price though. For example, I had a recurrent problem with my Italian corker once. I made a forum post asking if anyone else had a similar issue and to ask advice if I was doing something wrong. Next thing I know a brand new corker showed up at my door with a prepaid return shipping label. Thats the type of service that kept me coming back for more. Come to find out I had a defective corker.

 

[Mike]

Indeed, smurfe. I figured I had to start somewhere. Morebeer.com is where I used to get my homebrewing stuff from. They have excellent customer service and introduced me to the importance of that aspect of shopping.

 

[smurfe]

Mike, More Beer is an excellent company and yes, customer service is top notch there. I buy probably 70% of my online supplies for beer from them. And they are one of the higher priced places even after their reduced shipping. They have quality products and very fast shipping and service. My online favs for beer are:

More Beer
Northern Brewer
Midwest Brewing
Austin Home Brew
Hearts Home Brew
Quality Wine and Ale

For winemaking I get 95% of my stuff from Fine Vine Wines dot com aka The Winemakers Toy store. Only time I don't buy there is if they just don't have what I want or someone has a super great sale. For example the last time I bought from the place you ordered from they had those blue plastic carboy drain/dryers for $4.99 a piece. Every place else wanted $12.99. I bought a dozen. They also had a great sale on winery grade over run bottles that I got for like $5.00 a case. Other than that though, George gets the sale.

I do have a couple of local shops now so I try to support them when I can. I actually haven't bought many supplies in over a year as I have more stuff here at my house than some local home brew shops do.

 

[jimk]

Here is what I use. The Boun Vino bottle filler

I bought the Buon Vino super automatic bottle filler. There is a small rubber stopper at the small end of the part that goes into the bottle one is filling. That stopper has a split in it and after several uses on mine the split opened up almost all the way, making it so the wine never stopped squirting out of the tip. I wrote 2 emails to Buon Vino asking for replacement tips and they never responded to either one. I ended up making a new tip myself. Won't be buying anything more from them. Bad customer service.

 

[Tom]

I would think if you brought it back to the place you bought it that should have given you a new one. I always try that before going to the manufacture

 

[Mike]

Interesting. I feel like B3 is the cheapest. I rarely order from them, though. That's where I got all of my stuff from originally, but I get basically everything from my LHBS now. They don't sell corkers, though, which is why I had to go online.

 

[smurfe]

Interesting. I feel like B3 is the cheapest. I rarely order from them, though. That's where I got all of my stuff from originally, but I get basically everything from my LHBS now. They don't sell corkers, though, which is why I had to go online.

Mike, a year or so ago I was going to open a local home brew shop here until someone else beat me to it. During my organizational stage I made a spread sheet and entered the wholesale price of an item as well as the retail price of the same item from More Beer, Midwest, Austin Home Brew, and Northern Brewer so I could start pricing my items. Overall Midwest came out cheapest even with shipping added. The places that had free shipping or reduced shipping were the highest with Austin Home Brew and More Beer overall the highest. There is no such thing as free shipping. It is always absorbed into the price. Now this didn't account for every item, just the over all average. I have been most pleased with More Beer and Northern Brewer overall with any beer supply purchase.