Capping or corking champagne bottles

[beerlover1983]

Looking for some advice im going to start bottling some saisons and even sparkling wines.Can i get away with just using the bigger 29mm crown caps on the champagne style bottles.
Would i still need a wire cage with the crown of it waa sparkling wine (if that would even work)

Ive seen you can get a thing called a underbung which catches yeast when used with the 29mm crowns.


And if i really did want to or have to cork whats the best corker for champagne corks.

cheers

[willb]

29 mm caps are fine you won't need a cage, as far as I can remember from wine tasting classes, champagne is first bottle conditioned with a crown cap, and then when the sediment is removed then a cork and cage is added, so for the carbonation of beer it will have no issue

Hope this helps

[6470zzy]

+1 The crown caps will be fine for you.

[beerlover1983]

So i guess its only a issue of you having something very fizzy inside .If i did a sparkling wine would the crowns still hold up ?

[awalker]

I use plastic corks in champagne bottles fir my lambics with wire cages.
As proper champagne corkers are not cheap.

Cap should be ok though.

Just to confuse matters further. Cantillon use champagne corks and a cap on there lambic chamapagne bottles.

[willb]

crown caps are fine for sparkling wines, they just lose some of the sense of occasion that corks and cages bring for more info on how champagne goes through the process look at http://www.finewineconcierge.com/making-champagne

[beerlover1983]

Thanks all very helpful.

Link was very insightful cheers

[Frothy]

Even the basic Champagne corking machines are very laborious and cost well over a grand.
I used one for a few weeks once.