I should start with the disclaimer that this is my very first batch of homebrew.
Last night I had two 1L flip bottles explode. The bottom of the bottles blew out. As far as I can tell, I did everything correctly so I'm trying to figure out why I had an explosion. The beer is american pale ale and I used WLP001. The OG was 1.055 and after three weeks in the primary , the FG was 1.013. I bottled about 4.5gal last Saturday using 4oz of corn sugar. I disolved the sugar in boiling water and racked on top of that in the bottling bucket. I used three 1L flip tops and the rest were standard 12oz bottles. I left about .5-1" of headspace on each. Everything was santized with starsan. The flip tops were filled roughly midway through the bottling session.
They were stored in my basement about 62F for about 4 days and then I moved them upstairs to a 68F bedroom. These two broke about 36 hrs later. I've moved everything back down to the basement and so far, no other casulties.
I got the 1L bottles from my brother in law. He's probably had them for about 15 years, but has not bottled in them in over 11 years since he started kegging. They were stored up in his uninsulated attic. He's in Virginia, and it gets very hot up there in the summers. Is it possible that years of expansion and contraction might have resulted in hairline cracks that broke under pressure? Is it more likely I went awry somewhere in my process?
Last night I had two 1L flip bottles explode. The bottom of the bottles blew out. As far as I can tell, I did everything correctly so I'm trying to figure out why I had an explosion. The beer is american pale ale and I used WLP001. The OG was 1.055 and after three weeks in the primary , the FG was 1.013. I bottled about 4.5gal last Saturday using 4oz of corn sugar. I disolved the sugar in boiling water and racked on top of that in the bottling bucket. I used three 1L flip tops and the rest were standard 12oz bottles. I left about .5-1" of headspace on each. Everything was santized with starsan. The flip tops were filled roughly midway through the bottling session.
They were stored in my basement about 62F for about 4 days and then I moved them upstairs to a 68F bedroom. These two broke about 36 hrs later. I've moved everything back down to the basement and so far, no other casulties.
I got the 1L bottles from my brother in law. He's probably had them for about 15 years, but has not bottled in them in over 11 years since he started kegging. They were stored up in his uninsulated attic. He's in Virginia, and it gets very hot up there in the summers. Is it possible that years of expansion and contraction might have resulted in hairline cracks that broke under pressure? Is it more likely I went awry somewhere in my process?