Kitchen Garden Forum

Hello

I'm after a bit of advice on winemaking. Thought I'd post my questions here as I can't find the answer in any books or on the net, and you're all such a helpful bunch.

After the wine has finished fermenting, and you top up the demijohns and whack a bung in the top ready for storage – how do you get the bung to stay down? I use those little red rubber ones but the pressure just pushes it back up. I've tried it with varying amounts of liquid in the neck, but nothing seems to help.

Also, is there an easy way to cover the tops in wax? Usually I just make a mess and don't get a proper seal.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Sally

It would appear that it is still slowly fermenting. Rack the wine off any lees into a clean sterilised demijohn, add 1 crushed camden tablet and cork as you already have.

Hello Sally
You say that you are topping up and then whacking in a bung. You will have to leave a small airspace at the top of the container before pushing in the bung - you can't force a bung into a full container and expect it to hold. If your bung is coming out several days later I'd say that your wine is still fermenting and gas is forcing the bung out again.

John

the wax is used to seal natural corks (tree bark) which lets air through when it dries out, wine bottles are stored on their sides to keep the cork wet. the rubber bungs and plastic bottle corks dont have this problem. if u push a wet rubber bung into a container with a small airspace u compress the air significantly and this can be enough to immediatly push the bung out again . dry bungs dont slide so easily, a larger air space reduces the rise in pressure. or balence a brick on top

Thanks peeps, that's really helpful stuff.

The problem isn't that it's still fermenting – the bung comes out immediately. push it down - out it pops! it's a question of battling against the air pressure.

a dry bung definitely helps, but how much airspace can you leave between the surface of the wine and the bottom of the bung? 1cm? 5cm? Won't a greater airspace affect the taste of the wine?

I can see now that wax only really helps cork bungs but it has been useful so far for keeping the stupid bungs in!

Sally x