Starting to get bottle bombs. What should I do?

I've just had my second bottle bomb in the space of a few days and need some advice. Details below.

I'm brewing an orval clone (from the clone brews book). Its my third batch of homebrew. First two had no problems. Left this brew in primary for 7 days, then moved to secondary where it sat for 4 weeks. I didn't check FG has stabalised but it was slightly lower than expected and had sat for quite a while (OG 1.062, SG at transfer to secondary 1.018, FG 1.014). I bottled a week and a half ago (mainly into red strip stubby bottles as usual) using belgian candi sugar (I can't remember the quantity, will need to check the recipe tonight as I followed it exactly but have a feeling it was either 2/3 or 3/4 cup in a 5 gallon batch). All fermenting and bottle conditioning has been done in a freezer with temp control (68F for fermentation, 72F max for bottle conditioning). I checked the freezer on sunday (8 days into conditioning) and discovered a bottle had exploded. I cleaned everything out and left it again. I looked again this morning (10 days conditioning) and another has blown.

I'm concerned that I may be slowly going to lose all the beers as its meant to condition for another 2.5 weeks at least. I can see a couple of options but I'm not sure if they are worthwhile (crack the beers, let them degas slightly then recap, drop the temperature?). Any suggestions on what I should do?

I can only tell you to relieve some presure. Just pop the caps just enough so the presure escapes but not enough to lose the seal.

It sounds like you might have caused more fermentation after you increased the temp from 68 for fermenting to 72 for conditioning. Must have just been enough sugars remaining and with the addition of priming sugar + increased temps = boom.

DaSocialGuy said:

I can only tell you to relieve some presure. Just pop the caps just enough so the presure escapes but not enough to lose the seal.

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If you lose pressure, you lose the seal...if going this route, I would just re-cap or you run the risk of drinking flat beer. This will alleviate pressure. Pop them off and re-cap one at a time.

....Especially if it's an orval clone. The Brett will keep consuming and producing.

I've never used that much sugar before or that kind. I've always used corn sugar and once I use carbonation drops in plastic bottles and there was some much carbanation that it was sick. Never again. Now I just use corn sugar and everything has been perfect.

OK here's the plan take a couple of days off work and drink all that you can till all are gone or you are out of days off I figure couldn't take more than 2 days. A second plan is to remove the caps and recap that should solve the problem gloves and a face shield are mandatory.

Get safety glasses.

I use 6 or 7 oz of corn sugar (dry measure) in 5 gallon batch. Seems good. Trick is to make sure you are completely finished fermenting.

Mike

MikeinCT said:

I use 6 or 7 oz of corn sugar (dry measure) in 5 gallon batch. Seems good. Trick is to make sure you are completely finished fermenting.

Mike

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It's an orval clone; they add brett at bottling which continues to ferment after bottling...the trick is to lower the amount of priming sugar when using this technique.

That is a lot of priming sugar. I typically use 3 to 4 ounces. However I think there are other problems with fermentation not being finished at bottling. Get those puppies outside. Glass can fly 20 feet very very fast.

Doesn't Orval use corked bottles?

There's no brett (I've read it means its not a true clone but I am really just after something similar).

hillbilly - not a bad idea, I did actually suggest to my wife I may need to test a couple tonight, even though its early!

So is the general suggestion to open and recap them one at a time (whilst wearing safety goggles) and hope this fixes it. Am I risking ruining the whole batch and it being undercarbed? Or should I just leave them as is and drop the temperature a bit and hope for a slower carb? Or just hope that I had two weak bottles? Is there a rule on when bottle bombs are likely to happen if they will happen? Is there a point when you are "safe"?

Grinder12000 said:

That is a lot of priming sugar. I typically use 3 to 4 ounces. However I think there are other problems with fermentation not being finished at bottling. Get those puppies outside. Glass can fly 20 feet very very fast.

Doesn't Orval use corked bottles?

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They don't cork, but they use thick glass to reinforce.

I would be handling those bottles wearing safety goggles or more appropriately a full face helmet! If 2 have blown already, handling them could push another to blow in your hands. This is one of my main fears of home brewing right up with glass carboys.

I'd be surprised if that hadn't stabilized, maybe there's some other source of infection?

Pop the tops and allow them to sit open for a few minutes, then re-cap (if they're really over-carbed, they'll over-flow). I had the exact same problem w/ an IPA last summer. After releasing the excess gas and giving them an extra week or two to condition, they were fine - delicious in fact w/ great head.

Here's what you do. Put a time lapse camera in the freezer and post the footage after the next bottle blows

BBL_Brewer said:

Here's what you do. Put a time lapse camera in the freezer and post the footage after the next bottle blows

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I like this idea, or better yet a webcam so we can see it live.

I think that it is a combination of using too much sugar, and the brew not being finished.

Belgian yeasts are notorius for taking a long time to finish the last few points, and unless you are absolutely certain that it was finished, then this is probably the problem.

Definitely cover up and wear safety classes when handling them.

If you can drop the temps to around 40F for a few days before taking the caps off, more CO2 will go into solution reducing some pressure on the bottle before handling making it slightly safer to handle them IMO.

As said above. Cool the bottles first, then you can handle them.

OClairBrew said:

If you can drop the temps to around 40F for a few days before taking the caps off, more CO2 will go into solution reducing some pressure on the bottle before handling making it slightly safer to handle them IMO.

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I would definitely drop the temps for a few days. It could prevent more bombs and it could also make them safer to handle.

Sorry to hear about the "bombs", not too sure what to do other than what has been mentioned however I am wondering how you wound up with the "bombs" in the first place. If it was uneven mixing then you may only wind up with a few over carbonated beers and a bunch of undercarbonated beers!

Without knowing your process, did you batch prime your beer or add some sugar to each bottle? Weighing the priming sugar is always best (if possible), 3oz is always 3oz where 3/4 cup can vary greatly in volume by the size of the sugar granule. (think pound of feathers - pound of lead)

If batch priming you need to be sure and (gently) stir the beer for a couple of minutes to ensure thorough mixing.

Another thought is how accurate are your volumes? I have fairly innacurate methods to measure my volumes until I bottle so I do not know how much sugar to add until I get my beer into the bottling bucket.

Just a couple of thoughts, good luck!

Thanks for the suggestion of cooling them first. I'll drop the temp tonight. Will cycling the other beers in the freezer diown to 40 for a few days then back to high 60s (may not go as high this time) be a problem?

As for the process, I boiled sugar cystals and water as instructed, poured into bottling bucket (after it had cooled a bit) then racked beer on top so that it mixed as the beer flowed in.

Good point about the volumes, there may have been some loss at at the transfer from primary to secondary and from secondary to bottling bucket so the proportion of priming solution may end up being higher than if I'd managed to transfer all 5 gallons into bottling bucket. I hadn't thought about that before.

As for the video, if I had the equipment the geek in me would do it!

On a positive note, the bottle bombs may help put my case for a kegging setup!!! It also means I have an excuse to sample one "in the interests of science" tonight! I wonder how conditioned it will be after 10 days.

UPDATE - I dropped the temperature to 40 and after a few hours opened a bottle. Got an encouraging hiss and no fountain. Poured with a BIG head and many tiny bubbles (tasted tingly on the tongue). Now I'm not sure whether opening and recapping them all will cause it to be too flat!!

Any updates on how they turned out?

Ended up leaving them in the mid 40s (so a short bottle conditioning time). Ended up losing a total of two bottles. The rest are fantastic.