Exploding bottles in my first brew

I put my first brew into bottles about 2.5 weeks ago. It's a SF IPA clone -- it fermented for about 3.5 weeks and I dry-hopped it for the last 3 days in the fermentor. Did not use a secondary fermentor. Then I bottled it with an amount of priming sugar that, well, kind of I eye-balled. I probably could have been more accurate with the priming sugar, but I was being lazy.

Last night, two bottles exploded in the drawer I keep the bottles in. (It's dark and about 65-70F in that drawer.) I also opened a few bottles last week and they seemed like gushers (one turned into about 75% upon opening, the other became about 50% foam). Again, this happened after 2.5 weeks of bottle-conditioning.

I've read a good deal of the threads here on exploding beer bottles, but I'm not clear on what the best move is. Do I?

- Burp the bottles -- open the bottles slightly, in other words -- and then re-seal them?
- Chill all of the 30 or so bottles I have left in the fridge?
- Fully uncap and recap all of the bottles (though I'd imagine some of them will gush over?)
- Throw up my hands and start drinking this batch right away? (The beer tastes really good but it's really cloudy and very carbonated)
- Pour the entire batch down the drain?
- Leave the bottles as is and hope they don't explode? They're safely concealed in a drawer so they won't injure anyone, but the cleanup was a pain.

Any ideas?
Thanks for your help with this. Definitely don't want my first batch to go to waste!

Move them to the fridge as soon as you can. Like you said, if you crack open the top it will gush. In the refrigerator the CO2 will go into solution and the shouldn't gush when opened.

How much priming sugar did you use?

rjm1313 said:

I put my first brew into bottles about 2.5 weeks ago. It's a SF IPA clone -- it fermented for about 3.5 weeks and I dry-hopped it for the last 3 days in the fermentor. Did not use a secondary fermentor. Then I bottled it with an amount of priming sugar that, well, kind of I eye-balled. I probably could have been more accurate with the priming sugar, but I was being lazy.

Last night, two bottles exploded in the drawer I keep the bottles in. (It's dark and about 65-70F in that drawer.) I also opened a few bottles last week and they seemed like gushers (one turned into about 75% upon opening, the other became about 50% foam). Again, this happened after 2.5 weeks of bottle-conditioning.

I've read a good deal of the threads here on exploding beer bottles, but I'm not clear on what the best move is. Do I?

- Burp the bottles -- open the bottles slightly, in other words -- and then re-seal them?
- Chill all of the 30 or so bottles I have left in the fridge?
- Fully uncap and recap all of the bottles (though I'd imagine some of them will gush over?)
- Throw up my hands and start drinking this batch right away? (The beer tastes really good but it's really cloudy and very carbonated)
- Pour the entire batch down the drain?
- Leave the bottles as is and hope they don't explode? They're safely concealed in a drawer so they won't injure anyone, but the cleanup was a pain.

Any ideas?
Thanks for your help with this. Definitely don't want my first batch to go to waste!

Click to expand...

You really should be weighing out your priming sugar. That being said I'd get them cold and drink ASAP. If they're still gushers after being chilled you could try burping them. If you place a quarter on the top of the cap it will help not bend the cap so you can recap quickly. Just barely pull up on the cap till it hisses and when the sediment and beer foam up cap quickly when they reach the top of the neck.
They're most likely cloudy as a result of the sediment being churned up by the over pressure.

Might want to wrap them in a grabage bag when you put them in the fridge.......just in case...