Screw tops + Corks

[dogsbelly]

Hello,
I gave a bottle of wine to a friend at work, it was a screw top bottle and i used a straight cork. He told me, that he was told a long time ago, when he used to make wine his friend gave him a tip, screw tops are slightly wider than normal corked bottles which means the corks let a very small amount of air in.
Can anyone confirm this is true?

Thanks in advance,
Rob

[Duffbeer]

They are slightly wider than standard bottles, but the ones I corked in my early day's were all fine, the main problem with corking screw top bottles (apparently) is that the glass on the neck is thinner and could break.
If your going to use screw top bottles then simply keep the screw caps and re-use them, wrapping a little cling film around the threads ensures a good seal for short term storage, for long term storage I would always advise good quality corks and the correct corkable bottles.

[dogsbelly]

Excellent

Thanks for a very very quick response,
well the ones i corked i threw the tops away, they seem to be fine, which why i wanted to query it, but i shall keep the tops from now on.
Thanks,
Rob

[ms67]

i use screw top bottles with corks and agree that on the whole the necks are wider. i have often wondered about weak necks too but have never had one break yet. I use one of those two pronged bottle openers rather than a corkscrew and always hear a very short hiss as the compressed air is released when the first prong reaches the bottom of the cork. I noticed that different brands of corks in my homebrew shop were different sizes and bought the bigger ones (favourite).

I used to save the tops and use them with a cork sometimes if the corks were getting pushed out at bottling time (due to pressure from compression rather than gasses from fermentation). But i have stopped doing this now as i dont fancy bottles blowing up. i would rather a cork pop than a bottle explode cos the screw cap wont give. so on those grounds i would advise not using a screw top.

sorry to put a spanner in the works by giving a different opinion ;-)

[Crundy]

The tapered corks I have seem to fit screwtop bottles quite well, but more of the wine is in contact with the cork (because it's smaller lower down), so I guess it's fine if you bulk age your wine and then bottle for consumption within a few months.