bomb threat?

texlaw said:

Be aware, though, that if you get that carbonation up around the normal range for hefeweizens, you need sturdy bottles. You'll make bombs out of the thin glass ones.

Click to expand...

Last Thursday, I primed 3 gallons of hefeweizen with DME. (For some reason, I don't like priming with corn sugar and have been experimenting with other priming sugars to see what works and what doesn't-- i.e. did a porter with honey and a cider with sucrose.)

Anyway, I primed for 4.0 volumes of CO2. I used normal long neck beer bottles that I normally use.

Do I have a case of bombs in my pantry? Should I burp them? Pour them gently into a carboy until airlock activity stops? Or RDWHAHB?

If you are using the half liter German returnable bottles, you will be fine. If you are using American throw aways, you could be playing with fire just like TexLaw says.

I guess if you were in my position, what would you do about it?

I only have four 500 mL Ayinger bottles, so I didn't use them.

Chill one now, overnight, and then open tomorrow. If it's way carbed, you have two choices: chill them all right away and hope for the best. If it's overcarbed, but not gushing, you can open all of them. Then recap. You might be ok then.

Similar problem here ... which I never had before.
Bottled a batch of Hefe on Thursday and just found two bombs. They were actually re-used Becks bottles (us version). At least three others are leaking.

Should I try to open them and re-cap? Never ever had that issue before...

Well, I have a couple of concerns- when you found a bomb after a week, was it gently oozing, or do you mean glass sharpnel? I'm afraid if you try to open and recap, and they are bottle bombs, you could get badly hurt.

What happened during priming and how much sugar did you use? I'm wondering if the bombs you've had were from unmixed priming solution and maybe the rest would be ok or are even undercarbed if it wasn't mixed well. What was the FG of the beer?

I had two bottles completely gone, all over the place, three more were leaking. From that hefe batch I bottled, I put 24 in regular bottles (mostly Becks and Sam Adams that I have been using for quite a while) and the remaining in my old swing top.

Just now, I put gloves on since I need to clean up the mess and tried to open one. Well, let's just saw I had beer all over the kitchen and believe me I was very careful. I decided to dump the 'cheaper' bottles (old Kona, Leinenkugel, etc.) straight in the trash, open the leaking ones, and put the remaining few and all swing top in a cooler and dumped ice on them. We'll see what happens.

As far as priming goes, I used 3/4 cup corn sugar to prime 5gal. Same as always, same as all other hefe before. I never had a problem, as a matter of fact I had problems ever couple of batches with not enough carbonation.

Guess there is not a whole lot I can do at this point....

Since Ill be bottling a Hefe with DME in the next few days ill keep an eye on this thread