Broken cork in bottle

[Mako254]

‘05 WT 101. Cork broke and half fell in bottle. 

 

Funnel with a couple coffee filters and transfer to clean bottle?

[LCWoody]

yes

[smokinjoe]

See utensils below.  BTW, I've never liked the coffee filter thing, as it drains too slow, and the pieces of cork are big.  Try this:

 

Pour contents of bottle into big ass cup (Old big stadium cups and/or old big Hannah Montana cups work well...)

 

Take long, sharp, thin object (I have old metal skewer) and stick into emptied bottle to break up cork into sizes that will come out of bottle.

 

Fill up bottle with some water, shake, and pour out water along with pieces of broken cork.  This may take a couple of tries in order to get all pieces out.  They tend to want to stick to sides of bottle.

 

Pour contents of filled big ass cup through tight wind metal strainer into second big ass cup.  Then, pour back through strainer into original big ass cup.  Liquid should be clear and without cork now.

 

Pour contents of big ass cup through funnel into cleared bottle.

 

Replace with saved WT corks.  Always save a few of the notoriously fragile WT corks for this very purpose!  

 

FINITO! 

[EarthQuake]

I also wouldn't recommend the coffee filter. I've used coffee filters when making bitters, it's really slow and I find it can affect the flavor quite significantly. If you have some cheese cloth that will work better, but a simple mesh strainer is all you really need.

Edited December 17, 2017 by EarthQuake

[gurgalunas]

2 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

See utensils below.  BTW, I've never liked the coffee filter thing, as it drains too slow, and the pieces of cork are big.  Try this:

 

Pour contents of bottle into big ass cup (Old big stadium cups and/or old big Hannah Montana cups work well...)

 

Take long, sharp, thin object (I have old metal skewer) and stick into emptied bottle to break up cork into sizes that will come out of bottle.

 

Fill up bottle with some water, shake, and pour out water along with pieces of broken cork.  This may take a couple of tries in order to get all pieces out.  They tend to want to stick to sides of bottle.

 

Pour contents of filled big ass cup through tight wind metal strainer into second big ass cup.  Then, pour back through strainer into original big ass cup.  Liquid should be clear and without cork now.

 

Pour contents of big ass cup through funnel into cleared bottle.

 

Replace with saved WT corks.  Always save a few of the notoriously fragile WT corks for this very purpose!  

 

FINITO! 

Hannah Montana.  Ha!

[Mako254]

Thanks fellas. Got it under control. 

Not sure if ‘05 qualifies for ‘dusty’ but this is fantastic. 

[kevinbrink]

If you are going to buy dusties you need to own three things, a fine mesh strainer, an Ah-So, and a cork extractor. I opened an El Dorado Single Barrel Rum once and the cork basically turned to powder and I was able to get 95% out with an extractor before I even filtered it with the strainer. I've used the Ah-So as recently as two days ago on a G&M Caol Ila. 

[Richnimrod]

12 hours ago, kevinbrink said:

If you are going to buy dusties you need to own three things, a fine mesh strainer, an Ah-So, and a cork extractor. I opened an El Dorado Single Barrel Rum once and the cork basically turned to powder and I was able to get 95% out with an extractor before I even filtered it with the strainer. I've used the Ah-So as recently as two days ago on a G&M Caol Ila. 

Just being nosy . . . & curious; what's an Ah-So?    Not that I have that many suspected bad corx... or for that matter, that many unopened dusties.

[GeeTen]

It's a wine opener that uses two (2) prongs that slide down the sides of the cork instead of a screw that spirals down the middle of a cork.  Works great on really old Bordeaux First Growths or Vintage Ports!   

 

 

Ah-So (I should know!).  HTH, enjoy!   

 

Edited December 18, 2017 by GeeTen

[tanstaafl2]

The Durand Corkscrew combines the best of a standard corkscrew and the Ah-So but damned if it isn't a spendy little bugger.

 

I also saw something called the Coravin that allowed you to pour wine thorough the cork without removing it and presumably not letting any air get in. Good perhaps for preserving wine but not as important with whiskey and not really practical since most whiskey corks have a cap of some sort on them. A neat contraption but it was even more expensive!

[kevinbrink]

5 hours ago, tanstaafl2 said:

The Durand Corkscrew combines the best of a standard corkscrew and the Ah-So but damned if it isn't a spendy little bugger.

 

I also saw something called the Coravin that allowed you to pour wine thorough the cork without removing it and presumably not letting any air get in. Good perhaps for preserving wine but not as important with whiskey and not really practical since most whiskey corks have a cap of some sort on them. A neat contraption but it was even more expensive!

I thought about picking up a Durand but I feel like adding more "activity" to the cork would be counter productive.

[fishnbowljoe]

Yes, there is a reason to keep extra corks and empty bottles around.  A strainer and coffee filter took care of my problem. The only thing that sucks is that I know I lost some really good char when I filtered it. 

 

Biba! Joe

[jvd99]

I keep a bunch of old delabeled OWA screw cap bottles around for these situations.  

Edited September 7, 2019 by jvd99