First Bottle Bomb

In a batch of home made soda no less. I made a batch of Ginger Beer, carbed with champagne yeast for my wife and used a few smith-wicks bottles that I had in the cabinet. I had already used them once before with a low carbed brown ale with no problems, so i figured they were ok. The soda has been out in my brew box for the last month and Ive been bringing in a 6er here and there as the wife drank them.

No problems until last night when we got home from work. I had put a fresh set in the fridge the night before, got home and went to grab us something cold to drink, only to find everything in the fridge covered with a spray of sticky glass shards. Thank god no one was holding the darn thing when it went off. I looked through the glass pieces and only then realized how thin the glass walls actually were. So I carefully removed all the Smith-wicks bottles from the brew box and popped and dumped them before there was another incident.

Just in case, I think I'm going to stop with the Smith-wicks Bottles.

I've had a lot (Most of a batch) of soda explode. I think that the yeast just keeps going sometimes.
I also exploded an EZ Cap Bottle. It was on a top shelf in the kitchen...It is really tough to clean when the thing is 8 foot off the ground when it blows.

All that I have read about soda is that if the bottles are not kept cold the chances of bombs is failrly high. I never made any because I did not have the room for 2 cases of soda in the fridge.

I have read that your supposed to keep them cold to keep the yeast dormant.

I lost a whole batch of stout, many many years ago (was the reason I went on an 8 year hiatus). Bottled a stuck fermentation, and it became unstuck.

it was not fun pouring out 40 gushers. the rest exploded in the closet.

Jeez., I made a birch beer with the kid, and used 8oz Coke bottles. It takes 2 minutes of careful opening to get the cap off. If I had used thinner bottles, there would be glass all over the place I'm sure!

I think if we do it again, I'd prefer to make a mix, and force carb. Using champagne yeast didn't work well! (actually worked too well!)

When, I make root beer and ginger ale, and always use plastic bottles for this reason. Because of the sugar, the yeast never seem to stop with soda. As soon as they are carbonated, they are refrigerated. I only make a gallon or so at a time.

Lesson learned. Next batch will be orange soda ans we will put that into some two or three liter bottles.

The only time I had an explosion is when my in-laws storred a case of my homebrew next to their clothes dryer - they heated up, and POW - I guess it wasn't pretty, and fortunately I wasn't there to have to clean it up!! They thought those pop noises were the clothes in the dryer.