Bottle bombs?

I just bottled a batch of festa brew's double oatmeal stout. Came with safbrew s-33.

I had it in the primary for 14 days and had checked the gravity three days prior and then again on bottling day and had fg of 1.023 both times. The kit said to expect fg of 1.019-1.021. As it had been stable for a couple days, I just went ahead and bottled any way.

Now that it's been bottled, there seems to be more yeast on the bottom of the bottles than with any other beer I have made before. I've never used this yeast though, so not sure if it's normal for this yeast.

So, my questions are:

Is a lot of yeast on the bottom of the bottle a sign of incomplete fermentation?

How incomplete does a fermentation need to have been when you bottle to have bomb potential? For example, I was about .002 above where I hoped to finish. Is .002 of incomplete fermentation at the time of bottling enough to create a danger?

I would think a lot of yeast in suspension means that they were still kicking around, so they didn't settle out and not finish the fermentation. If the gravity didn't change, I'd say you are safe. Might still stick them in a bathtub if you're still worried, just in case.

It's hard to say exactly how much gravity would make a bottle bomb a sure thing. Someone may have better experience, I've never had one. Monstrous gushers yes, but no bombs.

If the extra 2 points were from highly fermentable sugar, you may have an issue. Normal priming with 4 oz of corn sugar per 5 gallons adds around 2.5 points, but that's pure sugar. If your gravity truly bottomed out and there was that much yeast in suspension, I would think your extra points were not from fermentable sugars, and shouldn't pose a problem. Get some small infection in there by something that could ferment the sugar, and that's a different story.

Ah, after thoughts. The S-33 is low attenuating as well, so I'd bet you'll be fine.

A lot of yeast/sediment in bottle doesn't exactly mean fermentation was incomplete. It might just mean you picked up a lot of yeast and or sediment when racking and bottling. According to the stats on that yeast it had medium floculation so yes a good amount might have stuck around. Just check the bottles out, open one every so often if they start being gushers then you know you might have a problem.

Anyone know the approximate maximum pressure that 12oz and 22oz bottles are made to handle?

** I just found this on another thread:

Revvy said:

A basic 12 ounce beer bottle, or as it is called the Longneck Industry Standard Bottle (ISB) can actually hold around 4 volumes of co2 without breaking.

Click to expand...

Aunt_Ester said:

Anyone know the approximate maximum pressure that 12oz and 22oz bottles are made to handle?

** I just found this on another thread:

Click to expand...

That's interesting about the 4 volumes pressure limit.

I added 5 oz corn sugar to a 6 gallon batch, so the corn sugar would have added (5/16)*46/6 = 2.4 points of gravity to a batch. This amount of corn sugar, according to beer smith, will give it 2.5 volumes of carbonation. So points roughly correspond to volumes with corn sugar, which is 100% fermentable. ie. 2 points would give you 2 volumes.

So, if my fermentation actually was incomplete by 2 points, and assuming a wort that was 75% fermentable, those 2 points of fermentation that are completed in the bottle should add 1.5 volumes.

So I would be right at 4 volumes! Yikes.

Of course I know this assumes my fermentation was actually incomplete, which hopefully it wasn't.

I am resurrecting this thread since I wonder how many gravity points it would take to create bottle bombs.

I just bottled my extract California common without checking gravity before racking it and it was at 1.024 which was .008 higher than it was supposed to finish at (1.016). It is ready to drink at 2 weeks after bottling. It is more sweet than dry which makes it slightly out of style. The gravity was .004 higher than what was called for in the recipe from Classic Brewing Styles. So far no issues, but I may throw them in the fridge soon.

I fermented the batch using the Wyeast California lager yeast for a month in my closet with temps around 58, but dropped to 52 some nights. I think the cold may have delayed fermentation. After a month I figured it was time to bottle, but didn't look at gravity until i was already bottling. Need to check the gravity on the next bottle I open.

How many gravity points would cause bottle bombs? Anyone know?

I think the bigger issue with bottle bombs is infection. I don't have any evidence for this opinion, except that I had a beer finish 1 point high that started to blow after 3 weeks. I've also heard of beers finishing 5 points high that never have a problem. It's hard to know if finishing higher is going to be a problem for a lot of home brewers, because a lot if us don't have precise control over our mash temps. Sure we checked three points in our tun before closing the lid, but who knows what the temps are in the rest of the cooler.

I switched out all my tubing after my experience.