Help! Bottle Bomb

Hello,

I woke up this morning to find beer leaking from my case of 2 week old Brewer's Best Red Ale. When I opened the case I found one bottle where the bottom with the bottom broken off. The OG of this beer was 1.050 and it finished at 1.014 after 3.5 week in the primary. I primed each bottle with 5 oz. of priming sugar mixed with 2 cups of boiled water. After raking on top of the priming sugar mixture I then gently stirred the beer. I opened one bottle yesterday and it was carbonated but no over carbonated and it tasted good! :rockin:

Do I have to worry about more bottles breaking, or was this just caused by a week bottle?

Thanks for your help!

Could be a weak bottle, but it is hard to say. Was the bottle exploded, or just split?

Its possible that in an effort to not oxidize the beer you didn't quite stir enough, leaving a pocket of super sweet beer/simple syrup mixture that ended up in one or more bottles. If one broke, it's certainly possible more could follow. I've never encountered a weak bottle before.

I highly doubt that not stirring enough would be any kind of an issue. The OP stated that he stirs a little bit, which is way more than me. I add the priming solution to the bottom of the bucket, and then rack on top. No stirring. Zero issues with uneven carbonation going on 8 batches since I stopped stirring. If you add the sugar after racking to the bottling bucket I could see there being an issue, but not if you add the sugar before.

The bottom of the bottle was broken off and in two pieces. It happened while I was sleeping and my wife and I didn't hear any explosions(I'm not sure if the bottles acutally make an explosion sound when they blow up).

Maybe that bottle had some bacteria in it when you bottled. The wild yeast will continue eating any sugars available, thus causing higher CO2 levels than your other bottles.

I might seal off the rest of the batch (to me means nothing more than wrapping the whole box/cases/6 pack carriers in a large plastic trash bag) and then RDWHAHB, call it good.

open another one and see if you get a gusher

payton34 said:

open another one and see if you get a gusher

Click to expand...

I opened another one while warm(65 - 70 degrees) and I did not get a gusher. It seems to have a good amount of carbonation. I should be ok then?

probably a weak bottle or a dirty one you should be ok. might be a good idea to cool them down a little just in case

mrdauber64 said:

Hello,

I primed each bottle with 5 oz. of priming sugar mixed with 2 cups of boiled water.
Thanks for your help!

Click to expand...

Am I the only one that thinks this is excessive? I'm no expert but...

I'm sure that's a typo, just suprised no one commented on it!

brewmadness said:

Am I the only one that thinks this is excessive? I'm no expert but...

I'm sure that's a typo, just suprised no one commented on it!

Click to expand...

I have yet to use 5oz of sugar to prime with... I also weigh the sugar, so no measuring cup volumes there.

I MIGHT use 5oz to get the honey cream ale up to 2.7CO2 volumes when it's time to bottle it up.

While I'm using Grolsch and Belgian bottles, so very little risk of bottle bombs, I'm more concerned with having too much carbonation and getting off flavors in the brew because of that. So, I typically target the middle of the CO2 volume range for a style... At least the first time I make it. It's easy to adjust for a style once you've brewed it.

I did too. But a little later the described method implies it's a typo. It's about right for 5 gal. though.

This is actually my first batch and I assumed the 5 oz. package of priming sugar that came with my kit was the correct amount of this batch. Would the 5 oz. package of priming sugar be too much and would that cause a problem? The directions that came with my Brewer's Best Kit did not say to measure out the priming sugar, it just said to "dissolve the priming sugar".

How did you prime it exactly? I always number and drink my last bottled ones first assuming if it wasnt mixed well the sweeter ones would be last,dont know if im wrong about that but i would think it would be the first ones or last ones. But could be a weak bottle a unclean bottle or wild yeast got into it some how.

Uneven carbonation across bottles usually means the priming solution wasn't mixed well enough.

Personally, I prefer to carbonate to the levels of the style beer I'm making. Such as lower for porters and stouts, but higher for pale ales, and such. This means that I'm not using one default sugar amount for the different batches. I also use the calculator either within Beer Smith or the widget site. I try to get within 1/8-1/4oz of what the tools tell me to carbonate with (sugar weight)...

Often times, the temperature the wort was fermenting at, is within a few degrees of where it sits once fermentation is complete. I do have the sticky thermometers on most of my fermenters now, so I can at least see where they are during the different times.

Of course, as with most people's homes, the temperature the fermenter sites sits in varies across the day. It's not the exact same across a 24 hour period, going up and down. So, using just the temp it's at right before bottling could give you mixed results. It's far easier if you have a fermentation chamber that you can leave the brew in for the duration, then just prime, bottle, and let sit at a decent temp to carbonate. I don't have that luxury yet. Hopefully once I get a new job, and move into a larger place, I'll be able to get all that set up...