Cooking Corks & Mead “Demustified”: Wine Wizard

QI’ve been brewing beer for about 10 years, so I’m pretty well acquainted with the cleaning process. This is my third year making wine, and I recently received some corking advice that cost me about 55 bottles of red and white Zinfandel. I had been boiling my corks and that seemed to be working well. I was advised to soak the corks for four to five hours, which caused them to squeeze out a good amount of water when I put them into the bottles. The reason given to me for not boiling was that there is a coating on the corks, at least the good ones, and boiling removes this coating. The wine in question has become cloudy, with a film floating on the surface, and has a very undesirable taste. I do believe I’ll be dumping it, and we all know how much that hurts. I have since read in your magazine that one to two hours is enough soaking time and perhaps using potassium metabisulfite when soaking the corks can help eliminate this problem. Could you please