Bottling Mystery - bottles breaking at the neck

Bottled my first two 5 gal batches about two weeks back. All went well so I thought. When I opened my first bottle to check the progress, the neck broke up by the cap. I thought that was odd but then the next 4 of 5 broke.

After carefully trying to diagnose the problem I've thrown in the towel. My local brewer hasn't a clue either.

Here's how I got to this point.

I've capped about 100 bottles using new brown bottles and oxygen caps. I cap with a red wing style capper. Within these bottles were about 6 used misc bottles. None of the used bottles have broke. I've opened about 15-20 new bottles to this point. Only 4 have survived. I've used several different church keys and one odd opener. I'm very careful to gently pry up the cap as I walk around the rim. Some success doing this but not much as you can see by the numbers. Every bottle that breaks does so with the same characteristic fracture diagonally from across the top of the cap ring down about 1/2" on the opposite side of the neck.

Now here's the kicker. I assumed I must have been too aggressive with the capper. So I gathered together some bottles and caps and went at it. No matter what I did, nothing broke???

The bottles with the brew continue to break.

Anyone have any idea what may be going on here?

Thanks....

Did you heat sanitize the bottles in the oven or anything that could have weakened them? Maybe it could have been a bad batch from the manufacturer...

sounds like you got a crappy batch of bottles. If you bought them new, without beer in them, bring a couple broken ones and some full ones to the store where you bought them, give an opening demo to show how they break and then ask for your money back for the bottles and if you bought them at an hbs, I'd ask for a kit or two to replace all the wasted beer.

I recall reading a while back someone having this same problem. They believed that the store bought 'new' bottles were slightly thinner glass than the glass in the re-used bottles. Perhaps you're experiencing the same thing?

Is the beer appropriately carbonated? If so, maybe it's just a batch of bad bottles, but if the beer is overly carbonated, e.g. it wasn't fully finished fermenting when you bottled, you could maybe be close to having bottle bombs and the extra little stress from prying the cap off may be enough to make it burst. This probably isn't the case or you would have mentioned something like that, but it's just a thought.

Are you at least still able to drink the beer?

Yikes! I like my beer in a glass, but not glass in my beer!

quickerNu said:

Did you heat sanitize the bottles in the oven or anything that could have weakened them? Maybe it could have been a bad batch from the manufacturer...

Click to expand...

No, sanitized with Idophor. Nothing was done with the bottles to "stress" them. I'm using bottles from four different cases (same mfg.) and the dealer says no one has raised any issues regarding bottle breakage. I think I can believe him.

Mystery continues....

Thanks guys. I did take some of the broken bottles back to the store. Unfortunately using my capper, my caps, and my bottles, the problem did not repeat at the store. This is the weird part since virtually every bottle will break "that has been refrigerated" (no nothing has been frozen).

I've come to the conclusion its either the bottles or the capper. I'm leaning toward the bottles... Carbonation isn't an issue.

I really do not want this to continue so I'm trying to understand the issue and take action to insure it doesn't occur again.

Mystery continues I guess...

I've only bottled 2 batches thus far (a third coming up in about a week and a half) but have made a conscious effort to collect a variety of different bottles from different brands of beer to see how they perform. If you have the opportunity to do so, give it a try.

If nothing else it has helped me, uh, "experiment" with the different types in a "research" setting... :cross:

On my 1st two batches I had that problem - not to that extent, but we had a couple out of each batch break. Some were new, some were old but we were able to find out that it was the capping process that stress cracked the glass. When you tried to replicate - you may have been much more conscious of the process.

We watched each other on the third batch and noticed that we had a tendancy to lean into the strong side and put excessive pressure on one side of the glass. After we corrected, we haven't had more than a couple at all since then.

Of course it may have just been bad bottles, but IMO you should have a spotter next time you bottle a batch - not just a couple - to see if after the first few you start to rush and get a little zealous.

Good luck and cheers.

I was just about to post this same problem, but I did a search first and found this thread.

I've been using Red Hook bottles, washed in the dishwasher, and capped with a two arm "Red Baron" capper, and I just started having the same problem on my last batch.

I haven't changed my technique from the last 400 or so bottles I've done, but all of a sudden 4 out of 5 are snapping off exactly as you described.

It's starting to piss me off...

I'm going to try less pressure while capping in the future, maybe that's the problem?

Oh, BTW, I have a fine strainer and so far I haven't died from internal bleeding. If I do, I'll be sure to have my wife post a warning.

Hoppy

I've had about 3-4 bottles from my last batch do this as well, I think it's just bad bottles.