Cork, corks, cork stoppers, stoppers, bottle closures, bottle corks, bottle stoppers, wine corks, corks for wine, natural corks, natural cork stoppers, agglomerated corks, colmated corks, wine bottling materials, cork processing, cork manufactures, cork discs, cork granule, granulated cork, termic insulation materials
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Cork Sterilization |
After the right seasoning level is reached, it is time to start cork processing.
First step is sterilization of cork planks at a boiling temperature (100 °C) for 70 minutes. This operation has double goal to eliminate poly-phenolic and parasitic substances, and to grant a certain grade of humidity to the cork plank, in order to allow manufacturing.
Although it is necessary, boiling of cork will cause a natural process of moulders generation on the board surface during following days. If not treated, those moulders will quickly penetrate the heart of cork plank, producing TCA that will give cork stoppers the defect to contaminate wine with a particular smell.
Sargalese has adopted a special sterilization technique, based on utilization of last generation steel boilers and on continuous-cycle regeneration of boiling water. This allows an almost total polling down of poly-phenols, tannins and boiling moulders within the cork plank.
After first boiling, cork planks are stocked on zinc-iron support for 48 hours. During this period cork planks are turned upside down a few times, so to keep the humidity grade homogeneous within the whole cork board. At the same time, the cork plank gets an adequate ventilation that disfavour proliferation of contaminating agents.
During those operations cork is progressively selected basing to boards thickness. In this phase, planks are destined to the production of corks of different sizes. Physical and chemical parameters are checked. Special care of this phase is essential to keep post-boiling moulders under control.
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