How are corks made?

Question

Im interested in the ones that keep the wine safe

Answer 1

Corks are made from the bark of a particular type of oak tree.

The bark is peeled from the tree when it is thick enough, upwards of every 9 years. (unusually the process does notharm the tree, it regrows the bark so the same tree can be harvested many times over the years)

The cork bark is cut into strips, and cork sized cylinders are punched out of it, then trimmed.

It undergoes a number of cleansing processes, but the above is basically all that is required.

For a very detailed description, with photos, of the production process look at http://www.amorimcork.com/ and click on Productionprocess>Cutting and Punching -- Amorin are the leading natural cork producer

You mention that wine keeps the wine safe. While cork is a marvellous substance -- it can be squeezed to half its thickness and will spring back without damage -- in fact about 5% of all wines closed with natural cork are affected by taint (TCA), which is the reason wines are offered to be tasted in restaurant.

Screw caps are increasingly be used for fine wines in order to remove the curse of 'corked' wines.

Answer 2

They are actually cut out (cored) of a type of pithy wood. It's done with a special tool called a cork borer. It's cool. I haven't seen or used one that makes the full size corks, but I have cork borers in my lab that are used to bore small holes in wood corks to put glass tubing through. Now we use rubber stoppers instead, but I still have a couple of sets of antique cork borers that I use once in a great while to make up a cork when a rubber stopper won't work.

Answer 3

There is a lot of interest in plastic corks these days, as well as screw caps. We associate screw caps with Thunderbird and cheap wine, but it turns out they actually are better at doing the job of sealing the bottle.

Answer 4

sure! The man-made type!

Answer 5

watch how its made.. i saw a guud show on that

Answer 6

tiny lathes