Wine - bottling with Weck types?

15 years ago

This is my first venture making wine from some of the abundant plums we usually have. It is now in the aging/fining process in the pantry. I haven't sampled too often, but it does seem to be - well wine, but only time will tell if the process was worthwhile.

Anyway, I purchased some Weck-type juice bottles awhile back, and was wondering if it might be possible to do a quick BWB to seal my wine in these small 5-1/2 inch size - individual size containers?

If some foods can be "pasturized/sealed" as I've read about, why wouldn't this work for doing a quick seal on my wine - without compromizing the taste or quality.

As the clamps are removed after the bottles are sealed, that would allow the lids to come loose in case of further fermentation - which would prevent bottle breakage.

I note that some wine companies do use the Weck type bottles - but use a rather superficial plastic material apparently molded around the lid - which would "give way" if fermention were to occur.

Any comments appreciated.

Bejay

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Comments (3)

flora_uk
15 years ago
First the legal disclaimer - I have no idea whether your proposal would work or not so this is just my hunch.

It is years since I made wine but I only ever used corks. I never sealed it any other way. Just imagine you had bought yourself a nice bottle of wine and before serving it you decided to cook it. To BWB your plum wine you would need to effectively boil it. I have no idea about the chemistry but I would have thought that would be guaranteed to ruin it.
bejay9_10
Original Author
15 years ago
Yes - that was my thought about boiling it - which would bring the temperatures too high. Although it takes 212 degrees (another disclaimer) to effectively boil away the alcohol.

Since wine is a fermented process in the first place, I'm not sure that it would need to be boiled in order to be free of contaminants - as say for food preservation would have to be.

Working with sauerkraut (a fermented product) with less demands for getting an adequate seal, I was hoping this principal could also be applied to wine.

Those little Weck bottles are so cute - and it would be so nice to be able to have an individual bottle of wine at each imbibing, rather than having an open bottle as a second setting.

Just mulling over the possibilities - but will probably invest in bottles, caps and capping supplies after all.

I know I'm really a tightwad - and hate to spend the money, if there is an alternate way available.

Thanks flora - appreciate the return. By the way, would enjoy hearing about your wine-making ventures, as this is rather new to me.

Bejay
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cabrita
15 years ago
The little bit of wine making I have done was bottled and the bottles capped with corks.

If you boil the Weck jars filled with wine you will kill the yeast, so no worries about any fermentation after the bottling. I use a yeast stabilizer to kill the yeast before bottling. The alcohol content in the wine acts as a preservative though, even though wine can spoil too.

I would not think that pasteurizing would help the wine flavor, so I would do only one jar, and compare to the results from conventional cork bottling. Problem with wine is that it keeps improving as it ages, so the experiments take a long time. Good and bad I guess.