First bottle bomb - in my truck

Yesterday I experienced my first bottle explosion ever. I had a six pack that I left in my 85° truck (behind the seat) for a couple hours. Got in, started it up and it blew up pretty loudly. A piece hit me in the back of the head, but no injuries. The bottle was split in half vertically down the middle. My truck now reaks of beer--I can't wait to get pulled over.

Incidentally, this was a commercial brew -- Pyramid's pumpkin ale or some crap. I didn't even want it but a buddy gave me it for free thinking I could at least use the bottles

I had my first recently too, but they were in a basement at 67F. WTF? Out of 50, 3 grenaded, 1 gushed, and 12 have been undercarbbed. Can't wait to see what the other 34 turn out to be. I am definitely going to be VERY careful opening / handling them. My guess is a failure to properly mix the priming sugar when racked to the bottling bucket?

I guess all commercial breweries have bottle bombs occassionally. Just glass defects I guess.

I thought the commercial guys pasturized so that this didn't happen. I think pyramid owes you another bottle of pumpkin ale

JohnA111 said:

My guess is a failure to properly mix the priming sugar when racked to the bottling bucket?

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yeah I've been wondering that........what is the proper way to mix priming sugar. From what I've seen in vids and read, you just put the sugar in the bucket and run the beer into it. Does anyone stir it up or would that oxidize the beer too much?

RodfatherX said:

yeah I've been wondering that........what is the proper way to mix priming sugar. From what I've seen in vids and read, you just put the sugar in the bucket and run the beer into it. Does anyone stir it up or would that oxidize the beer too much?

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What I've always done is boil the priming sugar in 2 cups of water, let cool, and add to my bottling bucket. When I rack, I put the tip of the tubing curled at the bottom of this bottling bucket, so that the beer fills from the bottom and "swirls" around, mixing well. Some use a sanitized long handled spoon to gently stir, but I never have. I've never had a problem, and always have had even carbonation.

JohnA111 said:

I had my first recently too, but they were in a basement at 67F. WTF? Out of 50, 3 grenaded, 1 gushed, and 12 have been undercarbbed. Can't wait to see what the other 34 turn out to be. I am definitely going to be VERY careful opening / handling them. My guess is a failure to properly mix the priming sugar when racked to the bottling bucket?
.

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Yep. That's what happened. Always use a sanitized spoon to gently stir after you have added your priming sugar so that it is equally dispersed in the beer.

Sorry to hear that...

Though I am happy to say I haven't suffered a bottle bomb yet. Somehow I've kept things within the boundaries of safety. Although I admit that California Common I made is definitely overcarbed with kreusening...but the gyle technique is definitely better for getting a moderate to high amount of CO2 in bigger beers without risking gushing.