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Storage question- Horizontal or Vertical

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R

Robusto

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Jun 12, 2011
234
1
18
NJ
Hi all-
Ok, time for the noob dumb question of the day. When you cork your mead bottles, do you lay them on their side like you would with wine, on standing up like you would with beer? I keep mine laying on their sides like wine to keep the cork moist, but one of my friends says that the mead will pick up off flavors from the cork. So, what do you fine folks recommend?

thanks
 
Natural or synthetic?

Robusto said:
Hi all-
Ok, time for the noob dumb question of the day. When you cork your mead bottles, do you lay them on their side like you would with wine, on standing up like you would with beer? I keep mine laying on their sides like wine to keep the cork moist, but one of my friends says that the mead will pick up off flavors from the cork. So, what do you fine folks recommend?

thanks
Click to expand...
It depends on the type of cork. In all cases you should allow the bottles to stand for 3 days to allow the pressure inside the bottle, due to corking, to equalize with the outside pressure. After that, natural or agglomerate corked bottles should then be stored on their sides to keep the corks from drying out. Dried our cork can lead to contamination. Synthetic corked bottles may be stored either way as they do not dry out.

If you bottle your mead in beer bottles with bottle caps, drying out is again not an issue. It may be stored either way and does not need to stand as no pressure differential results from capping.

I have never heard of off flavors from a cork being an issue.
 
I suspect your friend is refering to something commonly called "cork taint", where a mead or wine develops odd flavors due to unsanitized or dried out, contaminated, corks. Or they are just crazy. :p
 
Unless you use natural or agglomerated cork, or any other closure with potential to dry out, I consider storing upright the better option.

There will be less gas to liquid contact within the bottle that way, and you don't have to unsettle things before opening. Those things probably don't matter at all, but I don't see a possible advantage to sideways storage.
 
Thanks everyone.

Unless you use natural or agglomerated cork, or any other closure with potential to dry out, I consider storing upright the better option.
Click to expand...

I typically use natural corks, so it looks like I'll be keeping them on their sides.

thanks again.
 
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