First Bottle Bomb

Heard a pop last night and spring out of bed, headed downstairs to see what had fell/happened and saw nothing. This morning had the idea it could have been one of the beers I had in the living room.

Sure enough, a single bottle of Belgian Tripel that I had in a 12 pack of others popped. I bottled this in late AUGUST!!! Sure they were carbed high, in a Sierra Nevada bottle. 3 week primary, 4 week secondary. FG 1.010 that was steady for the whole time in secondary. I do see in my notes that I put more priming sugar than I normally use… 3/4 cup. Could that 1/4 cup make all the difference?? It could have also possibly been that there was another case staked on top of the Belgian case giving some added pressure.

The good news is they were in the living room from the cellar because I had been packaging these for a Christmas gift pack. Sweet Jebus, had I given this out and it happened at someone elses house I would have been so embarrassed. I put the remaining 11 back in the cooler cellar for now.

Did you calculate the volumes of carbonation? I'm not sure but it's somewhere between 3-5 volumes that pop a normal bottle.

I was shooting for 2.15 vol of CO2 for the Belgian style… which is about 3.5oz of dextrose for the amount of beer I had.

At the time I didn't have a scale but recently used one and measured out what I had been using for stouts & porters (1/2 cup) and was finding it's approximately 2.5 oz. dextrose…. correct for the style

So… theoretically, when I primed the Belgian with 3/4 cup that should have been approximately 3.75 oz of priming sugar.. Approximately 0.25 oz OVER what I was shooting for. Enough to cause a bottle bomb? I guess so.

I popped the caps of the remaining bottles in the batch and recapped. Each bottle (though not refridgerated, only cellared) had a strong hiss when opened. I'll be VERY careful measuring out priming sugar from now on. I'm going to take a hydro sample and report back. Perhaps this was a infection.

I wouldn't think so. Maybe you just had some bugs in that one bottle. Hoping for the best.

I've tested gravity, and with a large amount of foam and bubbles coming up it's reading 4 points lower at 1.006 at 60degrees. Prob. will lower more as it flattens.

Infected batch? Tastes fine to me. It pours with a foam almost with the creamy looking tightly packed small bubbles. Is this gusher?

fuzzyglasses said:

I've tested gravity, and with a large amount of foam and bubbles coming up it's reading 4 points lower at 1.006 at 60degrees. Prob. will lower more as it flattens.

Infected batch? Tastes fine to me. It pours with a foam almost with the creamy looking tightly packed small bubbles. Is this gusher?

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I would think gravity would rise as the carbonation comes out. Maybe all the way back up to 1.010. Maybe it was just a bad bottle?

I would think gravity would rise as the carbonation comes out

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do you just mean that the carb bubbles would be interfering with getting an accurate hydrometer measurement? carbonation level does not actually change the gravity of the liquid...

audger said:

do you just mean that the carb bubbles would be interfering with getting an accurate hydrometer measurement? carbonation level does not actually change the gravity of the liquid...

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This is something I've been wondering about. The bubbles not so much, but the dissolved CO2 still in solution.

It would seem logical that a large amount of gas dissolved in a liguid would lower the density of the liquid. Don't know by how much but I'd guess it would happen.

well specific gravity is just a measure of density, or weight per unit of volume. dissolved CO2 takes up a negligible amount of space while still dissolved, and contributes just as little to the overall weight. so as long as your hydrometer wasnt effected by the CO2 outgassing and bubbles sticking to it, the specific gravity should be the same carbonated as uncarbonated.

just think if you were measuring carbonated beer at atmospheric pressure, and then if you were in a hyperbaric chamber at 10psi measuring a beer carbonated to 10psi (and thus not outgassing). the readings would be nearly identical.

I was thinking gravity would drop as it flattens because the steady stream of bubbles floating up to the surface would have to effect the hydrometer upward. I kept an eye on it and it dropped further to 1.004 just FYI. I uncapped and recapped the batch and hopefully it released enough pressure.