Another reason not to bottle in a growler

I was brewing yesterday and a buddy came over to visit. I had promised him a growler of the Centennial Blonde I had on tap.

I filled the growler from my tap, leaving about 2" of headspace in the neck (right about to the point it starts to flare out).

He was standing in my yard talking to me for about 5 minutes, holding the growler by the thumbhook. All of a sudden, *POP* the bottom fell right out of the growler! He was left with an empty, bottomless growler and an astonished look on his face.

The most amazing thing I've ever seen. Once my camera charges up I'll take some pix.

I can only assume once the hot sun hit the cold growler it created more pressure than it could handle. It was literally 4-5 minutes, tops.

-Joe

thats wild man, I would definitely like to see the pics of that

I saw it! He was showing it during the live brewcast. Amazingly clean cut- like someone had cut it with a glass cutter.

I've noticed the Wynkoop overflows my growlers when filling and caps with zero headspace. Makes sense.

I only wished he was on camera when it broke, I heard the bang and the WTF?? and the aftermath of the bottle breaking. That ranks up there on the random crazy **** scale for sure. I am glad that your friend was unharmed other than mental anguish.

azscoob said:

I only wished he was on camera when it broke, I heard the bang and the WTF?? and the aftermath of the bottle breaking. That ranks up there on the random crazy **** scale for sure. I am glad that your friend was unharmed other than mental anguish.

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Mental anguish? Heck yes. Losing a free 1/2 gallon of beer is a traumatic experience.

"Oh the humanity!"

I've seen this happen twice with beer bottles. Once when two people clanked them for a toast and once when someone tapped another persons beer to cause it to overflow. The bottoms fell out perfectly. Pretty crazy to see, never heard of it on a growler. I'd really like to know what causes this.

I always fill my growlers to the rim. Let it overflow a little til its beer and not foam. Thats what Stone does too. Sucks to lose that beer though. Been there....

I'm still hunting down my camera...just re-floored my office so crap is everywhere.

See now I thought having the headspace was to help prevent bottle bombs. Is that only with carbing?

-Joe

Water does not compress, air does...so the more air in the headspace the more room for error.

Warning do not try this at home...do it at someone else's house so you can sue them for your stupidity.

My friends and I were knocking the bottoms out of bottles by filling them with water and hitting the top with an open hand while holding the neck with the other. Some just explode in your hand and glass goes everywhere. Fun stuff

uh, I was just looking for the other half of this bottle and there's some of it and there's some of it right there, too.

Here you go gang:





-Joe

that isnt bottling in a growler. You are pouring already carbonated beer into a growler. If you were putting priming sugar in there with uncarbed beer then that would be an imminent burst.

i fill growlers from my keg all the time.

I'm glad he did not get cut or anything.

BeerPressure said:

that isnt bottling in a growler. You are pouring already carbonated beer into a growler. If you were putting priming sugar in there with uncarbed beer then that would be an imminent burst.

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I realize that. My point was that if a growler explodes when bottling already-carbed beer, then trying to naturally carb in it is insanity.

I've put beer from my kegs into growlers dozens of times before without any issues. I think taking the ice cold growler out into the hot sun caused a serious overpressure situation.

-Joe

Maybe the growler was already compromised by dropping etc and all it took was some pressure and slight temperature change. Glad no one got hurt...... pretty soon everyone will be using better bottle growlers.

Glass is strange stuff. I had the bottom shear off a pitcher of iced tea when I was a kid.

Another possibility is differential expansion of the glass exposed to the sun and a small defect. Doesn't take much and very few growlers will be free of defects.

This happened to me once with one of those really big beveled glass mugs/steins

I missed it live. I just got to see everyone saying WTF!?

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

I missed it live. I just got to see everyone saying WTF!?

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What does inquiring about why turtles fart have to do with anything?

AZ_IPA said:

What does inquiring about why turtles fart have to do with anything?

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STFU! (Shut The Fook Up)

You can always use swing top growlers that were designed to hold pressure.

Trevor57 said:

You can always use swing top growlers that were designed to hold pressure.

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Trevor 57? Hey! You stole my name AND my date of birth! I'm fairly sure I can sue your user name!

Have had that happen a couple times but never with a growler. It is kind of freaky the way it ends up being a nice clean break all the way around.