sparkling wine help carbonating

[markylaird]

Hi all was looking for some advice on carbonating my wine that i have made for my wedding next year.

i have read lots about it fermenting in the bottle to cause carbonation and you get a small bit of sediment etc.
i have made 3 gallons of gooseberry, 1 gallon of pink champagne (redcurrant), 1 gallon of apple and elderflower and 5 gallons of rhubarb (got the rhubarb for free lots of it).

i was just wondering how do they bottle cheap sparkling wines professionally like martini asti, lambrini, merry down they cant do it the same way as they make champagne they must carbonate the bottle?

is there a place that would bottle my wine for me or is their a machine or method that i could use so i wouldnt have to ferment in the bottle. soda stream machine?

any help would me much appreciated

 

[Moley]

Quite right, cheaper sparkling wines are force carbonated in pressurised tanks and bottled from there.

Depending on finances, and as you don't seem averse to making wines in larger batches, have you considered the Cornelius keg system? I make Wurzel's Orange in 15 litre batches, bottle most of it ‘flat’ but always keep a keg of ‘Wurzel Frizzanté’ on tap.

 

[markylaird]

thanks for the reply i did think of something like that but i like the bottles :).
what if i made some sort of co2 injection system with a plastic champagne stopper and a pressure gauge pressurised the bottle and liquid to my desired pressure then swaped it out with a normal plastic champagne stopper? im not looking for champagne pressures just sparkling if i swaped it do you think i would loose to much gas opening after pressurising to put a stopper in it?

or can i use that Cornelius Keg and bottle from that?

 

[Moley]

It takes a bit of time for the gas to get into the liquid, so I'm not sure how your bottle theory would work.

I've never tried using a SodaStream, can anyone else comment please?

Some fizz gets released on transfer but you can bottle from Corny, my mother-in-law loves the fizzy Wurzel's and I have to take a couple of bottles to Wales if we go visiting, or she will take some away if they visit us.

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

I've been considering the soda stream option for a while. I had a Soda Stream when I was a kid probably about 10-15 years ago. From my recollection, it was good for fizzy drinks, but the fizz was always a very big-bubble fizz. Probably not particularly elegant for a sparkling wine?

Then again, I always pressed the injection button for way longer than it said to. Maybe that had something to do with it...

I think it's well worth a go with a Wurzel's to see if it works and then move onto the others later.

 

[hypnoticmonkey]

I should also say - the instructions on the soda stream always used to say to only fizz water and then add a concentrate to that water. That never stopped me using it to re-carbonate flat coke though!

 

[Duncs]

I've used a soda stream on my TC and it works well, just remember to open the sodastream very slowly once it's carbonated or you'll end up with a kitchen smelling of your wine (don't ask me how I know )