I'm bottling a mead to pass out around Christmas time. I know mead isn't traditionally carbonated, but I want that satisfying cork pop and super effervescence. I have a floor champagne corker and an assortment of champagne bottles, belgian bottles and 375mL Vinnie bottles (Russian River). I'd rather not bottle everything in 750mL as I don't want to give away ALL my mead. So I'm thinking of using the 375mL Vinnie bottles, although I read somewhere Vinnie recommended not exceeding 4 volumes CO2 in those. They can take a champagne cork and cage. So my question is, will 4 volumes CO2 be enough to create that POP? At the very least I want them easy to pop out with great carbonation.
For the 750mL champagne bottles (with the dimples at bottom), I know they can handle ~7 volumes CO2, so that's what I'll do for those.
I think I'll experiment with a few before committing to bottling the full 10 gallons.
** EDIT: It has been a while since I corked and didn't think it through. I'll be using belgian corks for the 375mL and champagne corks for the real champagne bottles. I think 4 volumes CO2 will be plenty to pop the belgian cork... it just won't be the same as actual champagne. I don't know of any 375mL that can handle that kind of pressure (typically that have that dimple at the bottom).