unsafe?

Is 6 oz of bottling sugar unsafe? I've had a few bottles pop and it may be because the case on top of it was resting on those taller bottles or because of the sugar. My gut tells me that 20% extra wouldn't cause explosions, but if I've messed up, I need to deal with this quickly

sieglere said:

Is 6 oz of bottling sugar unsafe? I've had a few bottles pop and it may be because the case on top of it was resting on those taller bottles or because of the sugar. My gut tells me that 20% extra wouldn't cause explosions, but if I've messed up, I need to deal with this quickly

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Depends on what style you are priming. Hefes an dunkelweizens usually carb around 3 volumes of C02, requiring close to 6 oz of sugar to accomplish this. My dunkelweizen took 5.8 oz of table sugar, haven't had any issues. The temp you place the bottles in after priming might also have an effect. I also stack my cases on top of each other and have never had a bottle bomb. Knock on wood, lol

They're witbiers. Stored between 60 and 80 degrees. (Probably averaging 70)

It doesn't matter what style you are bottling. If you are worried about bottle bombs when you carbonate to high levels then I would suggest using Belgian style bottles. Some standard beer bottles can handle higher levels of carbonation than others. There really isn't a way to tell which ones will be more robust, as far as I know. The other option would be to use less priming sugar.

I've never used more than 5 ounces of priming sugar (for 5 gallons) and the beers carbed up well with no bottle bombs. Six ounces might be ok, but I'd worry a bit. Not alot, but a bit. But if you're already had bottle bombs, then I'd worry a lot more.

I would suggest putting them in the fridge, if possible.
Cheers,
Brandon

Are the other ones carbed up? Pop a couple randomly selected from the batch. If they are carbed up they can be put in the fridge. Slows additional fermentation and CO2 production. Also allows more co2 to stay in the beer instead of the headspace. . I once bottled a Saison in haste that I knew hadn't finished. All over-carbed. Bad. One bomb in the cabinet. Put the rest in the fridge, no more bombs just had the champagne of saisons. My guess is that maybe your FG was not yet there plus a tiny bit of extra sugar and you are past the threshold.

I popped two and they gushed like old faithful. I'm gonna throw these guys in the fridge ans keep them close to 32. Luckily I have a beer fridge to do this in and leather shop gloves and a face shield

You'll probly have to pour out into a pitcher to drink them. I couldn't fit 12oz into a 16oz glass!
You will have world class burps. Mine still tasted good tho.

I have a batch where I accidentally used 8 ounces of priming sugar instead of 5. I've not had a single bottle bomb with that batch but I've learned to open them 20 to 30 minutes before I want to drink them and set the bottle in a big mug because they will foam over for about that long and 1/4 of the beer ends up in the mug outside the bottle. If you have had bottle bombs it is likely from bad mixing of the priming sugar or bottles that were not cleaned well enough so that there were some wild yeast in them.

Another possibility is to put a quarter on top of the bottlecap (to prevent them from bending), open slowly, vent pressure, and recap. This will hopefully allow you to save the batch and avoid bottle bombs.

I've used as much as 7oz for some styles. Never blown a bottle.
I'd guess your bottles had week spots, perhaps hairline cracks you didn't see, or are just weak bottles.
It's also very possible the priming solution was not well mixed in and some were actually primed higher than others.
I HAVE had that happen. Bunch of well carbed bottles and a few with little to no carb. Hard to say what happened AFTER the fact.
I doubt 6oz is the problem though.

The highest priming amount i ever did was 5oz for a Saison. I unfortunately had an explosion but it was definitely because of the bottle. I re-used a Saison De Dottignies bottle which was pretty thin compared to the others. The rest were all in mostly Sam Adams or other thicker American bottles. None of those had a problem. If you're worried just store them somewhere you dont care about getting a little messy or wrap the cases in a garbage bag...

I cracked them open and recapped them. All but a few were very vigorous. Probably poorly mixed bottling sugar. Any tips for the future?