My First Bottle Bomb

So I got home this afternoon, walked inside and said to myself "Hmm, what smells like beer?" I go into the kitchen and notice a brown puddle on my counter, what happened still hadn't dawned on me so again I said to myself "gross, did the cat have a serious case of the runs?"

Then I notice the beer dripping out of my cabinet. I had put two 22oz's in my liquor cabinet to age for awhile, and I guess it's been a little warm around here.... The bottom blew out of one of the bottles and 22ozs of my first batch of HB went everywhere .

Now, keep in mind that the liquor is kept on the 3rd shelf and food is kept on the lower two so in the process I also lost a box of oatmeal, two boxes of mac & cheese, some seasonings, and I thought I also lost a box of hostess cupcakes but luckily only the box was damaged and the cupcakes were safe inside their plastic wrappers

Oh well, live and learn... I'm going to put a 6pk of EdWort's Apfelwein in the fridge to drown my sorrows

I got home today and found my 2nd bottle bomb ....1st was 2 weeks ago , same batch of beer. I have them down in the basement where its around 60 or so.

I feel your pain.

I haven't had a bottle grenade since brewing Root Beer back in '94.

Should putting them in the fridge prevent them from blowing up anymore? I have had a few of them and they are a little over carbed.

I'm just happy to hear the cupcakes survived! Sorry about your beer loss though

Tophe said:

Should putting them in the fridge prevent them from blowing up anymore? I have had a few of them and they are a little over carbed.

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Yes, refrigerate them. The CO2 will absorb into the solution and the yeast will stop eating the corn sugar (or whatever you used to carb with). What did you prime with and how much? I've never had a bottle bomb, yet. (I'll put the inevitable yet in there).

Tophe said:

Should putting them in the fridge prevent them from blowing up anymore? I have had a few of them and they are a little over carbed.

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Putting them in the fridge will definitely help. That's where the surviving 22oz went.

Tophe said:

Should putting them in the fridge prevent them from blowing up anymore? I have had a few of them and they are a little over carbed.

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My experience with over carbed beer is that they stay that way or get worse. Putting them in the fridge will help, but it depends on how over carbed they are. If it gets worse and they start exploding in the fridge you'll have more of a mess to clean. If it's infection caused you better start pounding them down......

dblvsn said:

I'm just happy to hear the cupcakes survived!

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And, miraculously all of my girl scout cookies were spared. I guess the beer gods can be cruel but they know where to draw the line

if they are all potential bottle bombs, be careful how you handle them, because if one goes off in your hand, it could be extremely dangerous!

gnef said:

if they are all potential bottle bombs, be careful how you handle them, because if one goes off in your hand, it could be extremely dangerous!

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I only have 1 22oz and 3 imperial pints left and all of them except the 22 have been kept in the fridge(and the 22 is in there now), so hopefully I'll be fine...

Woke up this morning to the same problem - a puddle of golden brown beer on my floor and a pile of glass shrapnel in the pantry.

I was a little shocked because it blew through the sides of the bottle all the way around leaving long, 4"x1/2" wide pieces of glass, plus innumerable tiny shards. The most impressive part was that the neck of the bottle blew straight up, over some large bottles next to it, and a foot or two away.

I'd like to think that today's bomb was a fluke, since we always use less sugar that is provided to carb. Maybe the bottle was flawed. Maybe that bottle got more than its fair share of sugar, or was infected somehow...

I guess time will tell. I'll crack open another from the batch later on and try it, just in case...

kvh

check now. figure out if it was just a fluke, or a widespread infection. if it was just a fluke, you shouldn't worry too much, but still be careful with them, but if it was a widespread infection, you need to put all those bottles into the fridge immediately, and be very careful when handling them.

analyze your bottling routine, the way you mix in the priming sugar, and also your sanitation.

Now I am worried!

Yeah, me too.
I'm beginning to think letting my bottles condition on that shelf over the baby's crib wasn't such a great idea after all

yeah, i'd think glass would pretty much be a no-no for storing over a baby crib. i live in earthquake country, tho

scary stuff. i have yet to have actual bottles blow up. most i have had is some overcarbonation on one of my triples and they burst froth like champagne.

watch that SG and sanitize, sanitize, sanitize and everything should go fine.

Well I had a second bottle explode in as many days. Woke up to the sound of shattering glass at 7:30 - same batch so I'm thinking we had a little too much sugar in it. It doesn't help that the digital thermometer was reading 82 deg. in that closet when it blew.

Alas.

I moved everything to the basement where it's about 65 instead (this only works in the summer as the boiler keeps the room at about 90 during the cold months) and _AT LEAST_ I won't be cleaning up broken glass from the kitchen pantry anymore... just the basement, which has a floor drain.

It doesn't seem infected, we tried one yesterday at the bbq... I'm just thinking too much sugar.

I was also wondering - do you think it's possible that because it was lagered, that maybe too much of the yeast went dormant and it's finally finishing fermenting? I remember my FG was only off by a point or two with this one, so I wasn't expecting this... just too much priming sugar?

kvh

you let it primary ferment first at around 50F for at least three weeks before you started the lagering, right?

do you have fridge space to put all the bottles?

Yeah, between primary and secondary fermentation, it sat for over 2 months. Most of that time it was around 50 or 60 deg., though sometimes it dipped to the 30s (it was my enclosed but unheated porch - on the cold nights I kept it warm with a light bulb)...

I don't have fridge space to keep them in - my friend Phil might - the beer IS half his....

I'll check my basement in a couple days - if all is well down there, I'll let it be.

kvh

Great, now I'm even more scared of my bottles blowing up in my hands . However after my first batch I don't ever want to use plastic bottles again. I'm probably going to under-carbonate for a while now in fear.

SilverAnalyst said:

Great, now I'm even more scared of my bottles blowing up in my hands . However after my first batch I don't ever want to use plastic bottles again. I'm probably going to under-carbonate for a while now in fear.

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Trust me, it scares me a bit too - but let me just say, this is my 19th or 20th batch, I've never ever ever had this problem before, and I _THINK_ we measured out the sugar properly, but we pieced it together from multiple packs of sugar that were all 3/4 empty... we probably just over-carbed. If you're really worried, use the larger, heavy-duty pint bottles or super-duty bottles that the large dogfish comes in (25oz I think.) The swing-tops are pretty strong too, and you can burp them and re-seal if you need to.

If you're worried, buy boxes they can be closed into, and lift them into the refrigerator by the caps. Once they're chilled, if you've already made it this far, you're definitely ok.

kvh

seriously, you shouldn't have to worry about anything as long as the gravity is lower than say 1.020 (depends on the brew, of course) at bottling and you add the right amount of sugar or DME.

infection is pretty rare, too.

For what it's worth, I moved all my bottles (well, all the new ones) down to the basement where it's about 65 degrees... I haven't had another explosion yet.

Thought you'd like to know.

kvh