Lets talk about Corks

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McJeff

NewBee
Registered Member
May 17, 2013
1,095
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Farmington, Maine
Personally ive always just grabbed what ever the LHBS had on the shelf and slammed em into the bottle with out a second thought. After reading about cork taint last night im totally questioning what im doing and using. Synthetic corks instantly came to mind but i read they are only good for about 4 years till their seal goes. Ill prob just end up buy some "top notch" normal corks for the few bottles i age long term and the rest just use synthetic. Curious what other peoples thoughts are and what you guys use?

another question is there a special cork prep, i read some guys soak their corks first? why?
 
I've only recently begun corking mead myself, but so far just the generic 100 ct corks for 13-14 bucks is what I've been using. I've never heard of Cork Taint and will definitely look it up. As for soaking the corks, well, that's a thought that kind of scares me. I'm not sure what it accomplishes and I just envision all that water being rung out into the bottle as the cork is squeezed into its new home. Personally, I think soaking and boiling corks is an older method that isn't required today.
 
'Corked Wine' is another term for the same thing I think, it is getting rarer as they do a better job with creating the corks, but I've had a commercial mead which was cork tainted...