EZ pasteurizing bottle bomb warning

I just started pasteurizing my first cider this morning. Bottles have just the right amount of carbonation and are ready to go. Once the water temp reached 190F I placed 7 bottles in the water for 10 min . With 2 minutes to go in the first batch I here a crash in the kitchen. When I go to check on it there is glass all over the kitchen. Ok, I 'm thinking maybe a bad bottle and I put another batch in and it happed again.

What do I do now. I don't want to risk losing more bottles or an eye for that matter. What would you do.

Going to try 10 degrees lower and see what happens.

Wear safety goggles?

Cold crash instead if you're gonna drink them fast.

Well they stopped bursting and I still have both eyes. Not sure what was going on but ever since I lowered the temp and double burner, everything has been good. Just finishing my last batch and crossing my fingers that fermentation has stopped.

Guessing that my thermometer is wrong and the water was way to hot. Also think that the bottles making direct contact to bottom is the main contributor in the over heating and bursting of the bottles. Maybe having a rag at the bottom of the pot might help.

This is scary, I have done this a few times, and I am about to do it tomorrow

I ran mine starting temp at 170 degrees for 10 minutes, final temp was near or above 150 for all the batches, this was sufficient to kill the yeast in mine. I found anything higher than 170 on my thermometer and I was starting to get bubbling (start of boiling) and I was just not comfortable with that.

I think Initial Temp doesnt matter so much as heating the bottles above 140 for more than 60 seconds.

If you dont remove from the heat the temp at the bottom of the pan wear the bottle comes in contact can be well over 212 deg. Even if you turn off the burner on an electric stove it still stays hot. Thats why I use a spaghetti pot with the strainer insert. The bottle never comes in contact with the bottom of the pan. I also put the cover on to catch flying glass, which has never happened.

Do you have a dishwasher?
I pasteurized mine in my dishwasher on the sanitizing cycle, 155°. A dish washer is safer because if you do have bottle bombs they are contained.

aubiecat said:

Do you have a dishwasher?
I pasteurized mine in my dishwasher on the sanitizing cycle, 155°. A dish washer is safer because if you do have bottle bombs they are contained.

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Yup. Never used the heat cycle even for dish washing. How many bottles at a time?

aubiecat said:

Do you have a dishwasher?
I pasteurized mine in my dishwasher on the sanitizing cycle, 155°. A dish washer is safer because if you do have bottle bombs they are contained.

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I have my first cider fermenting about a week now. Interested in the dishwasher option. Did you lay them down horizontally or stand them upright? What temp would I need to run it at to sanitize properly? I use the sanitize cycle to sterilize my bottles pre filling, but I do a full wash cycle with no soap. I might try running the sanaiize cycle empty and toss in my oven thermo probe to see what temp I'm getting. Its an old dishwasher.

MarkKF said:

If you dont remove from the heat the temp at the bottom of the pan wear the bottle comes in contact can be well over 212 deg. Even if you turn off the burner on an electric stove it still stays hot. Thats why I use a spaghetti pot with the strainer insert. The bottle never comes in contact with the bottom of the pan. I also put the cover on to catch flying glass, which has never happened.

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I think your right and a key step to insuring that some unlucky person does not get hurt. I don't think It should be recommended to anyone unless they can somehow suspend the bottles.

Use a dishtowel on the bottom. heat does not have to be that hot. Pasturization occurs at 140 for 10 minutes. you could go 160 and be fine. Also consider two pots, one to warm up the bottles 100-110 before they go in the main pot. This helps retain the heat longer.

Also sometimes if you cut it too close you'll have bottles pop on you. Last batch we lost 3. one was in the warm water 100-110 pot and it exploded. Probably should have paturized a couple days earlier.

I did my caramel apple with a dish towel on the bottom and also preheated in hot water in the sink. Probably 100-ish. I had one go in my first batch before I tried the dish towel and preheating but I have a deep pot and the lid, so no damage but I had to pasturize in cider water for the rest of the batch.

MarkKF said:

Yup. Never used the heat cycle even for dish washing. How many bottles at a time?

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My last batch of cider was 50 12oz. bottles and I was able to pasteurize all of them at once.

william_shakes_beer said:

I have my first cider fermenting about a week now. Interested in the dishwasher option. Did you lay them down horizontally or stand them upright? What temp would I need to run it at to sanitize properly? I use the sanitize cycle to sterilize my bottles pre filling, but I do a full wash cycle with no soap. I might try running the sanaiize cycle empty and toss in my oven thermo probe to see what temp I'm getting. Its an old dishwasher.

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I had bottle standing up straight and some laying at about a 45° angle. It didn't matter. The caps swelled on about 10-12 of them but I didn't have any bottle bombs.
I looked in my dishwasher manual and found that the "sani-rinse" cycle is at 155°.
I can't remember what the required temperature and time scale was for pasteurizing the cider but you can rest assured not yeast will live through a dishwasher cycle because of the amount of the time of the cycle.