Doh! first bottle bombs

Well, crud.
So I was working in my home office, and took a break to stretch my back by laying on the floor. I started smelling beer, which was odd, until I remembered I recently moved 4 cases of beer into my closet because it was warmer (basement gets down around 55). I sadly opened the closet door to see one of the cases obviously wet.

I quarantined that batch into a large container. Not sure why it happened, as I thought my sanitation has been good. I usually gently stir the beer when adding priming sugar addition, but these last couple of batches I assumed the siphon was mixing it thoroughly.

I did have them in the cold basement for 2-3 weeks, and just moved them upstairs about 5 days ago. I tested a beer from that batch, it was still pretty much flat.

For your voyeuristic pleasures, here's the one bottle (so far):

If one was flat, and one went boom... well, I guess the siphon didn't mix 'em well enough. Sad. Did you smell the broken glass for signs of contamination?

I always let the natural swirling action of the beer entering the bucket from the syphon do the mixing and everything turns out evenly carbed. But one day about a month or so ago, one bottle - kaboom! quarentined the batch but popped one open to test, pretty much flat. had to be a single bottle infection

I usually stir my mixture of priming sugar and beer before bottling, except my last batch.

I forgot to stir and filled one bottle. After the first one I stirred and resumed like normal. Well, about 5 days later I had one bottle explode and the rest seem to be completely fine after 2 weeks. I can only imagine that the siphon didn't mix up the bottles enough.

Lesson learned. I will be mixing my beer prior to ANY bottling from now on!

I swirl with the siphon AND gently stir with a spoon. Can't be too careful!

I've also had one gusher, but never a bottle bomb (from beer. Had a few when I made soda the first time...)

Sorry I dont do much bottling - Why would you think it's an infection and not just unstirred bottling sugar or possible unfinished fermentation??

MikeRoBrew1 said:

Sorry I dont do much bottling - Why would you think it's an infection and not just unstirred bottling sugar or possible unfinished fermentation??

Click to expand...

in my case anyway,at that time I checked another beer that was pretty flat. a freind who has beers from the same batch checked one of his, same thing. 2 weeks later they were all perfectly carbed, and from what I can tell evenly carbed. I make batches that get split 3-4 ways with my brew buddies and our beers are pretty uniform across the board. only had a problem with that one bottle. So, I'm not 100% posative but I'd be willing to bet I had a single bottle infection. op's situation may be different, just food for thought

Often bottle bombs are due to infection, because bacteria are able to eat sugars that the yeast can't. So, if you were carbing for yeast, you had the right amount of sugar, but since the bacteria were carbing, you've got way too much. That's why people always ask about infection when bottle bombs are mentioned.

If it's the only one so far, could be a defect in the bottle. I guess I'm a bottle half full kinda guy.

Yeah, just make sure you store them all somewhere they won't cause damage if they do explode, and when you open them maybe wear eye and hand protection? I'm just sayin', be safe... the pressures involved are serious, and the bottle can send glass shards at high speed to cause mucho pain and/or blood loss.

I've been brewing a bit over three years, and I always prime by dissolving the dextrose in two cups of boiling water, then pouring it in the beer when it starts to siphon into the bottling bucket. Evidently this is adequate mixing, because the bottles all taste the same, appear to be carbed the same, and no bombs or etc.

Well, good news so far. This has been the only bottle that has had any problems. Hopefully it'll stay that way. That bottle was a quitter.

Lol

Lazy bottle. Hope you dont have any others that arent up to finishing the job.