I buy the cheapest corks there are. They are manufacture's rejects I think, but the guy said there standard length.

Why do you put them upside down right away. Seems like that really puts them to the test and forces wine into the cork. Maybe thats a good thing. I know it works for you. I know you got a great seal on all them.
Hey I used boiling water to shrink my dust covers on and it did the chore in 2 seconds flat. wow.

Number 9 corks that are 1 3/4 inches long. My little ole wine maker in San Pedro told me the longer cork is better for storage. Jack Keller says to set the bottles up right for a couple of days first to let the corks dry out before tipping them upside down. My wine maker told me to cork them and just put them upside down in the case. Been doing that for about 30 years now. No leaks yet. The number 8 corks scare me. They go in just too easy. I have some laying around that are really old and never had one leak though. wyo wino

They are one and 3/4 normal length. They have different factory printing on them so i think they are rejects, but they were cheap. I would rather have the beveled ones because all my bottles have this tiny peice of cork in them that broke off.

I have had the problem before with pieces of cork in the bottle. What I found was the piece on the bottom of the cork wasn't the culpert. It was the top portion of cork. That piece remained on the corker and when I bottled the next bottle it fell into the bottle. My old corker has a metal piece that sits on the lip of the bottle. I pull that off and rinse quickly before putting the next cork into the next bottle. Just a couple of quick swishes in a container of campden water.

wyo wino