1st homebrew..Success!

I brewed Midwest's Liberty Cream Ale for my first batch. Bottled it only a little over a week ago. I posted a thread a week ago or so about how I only bottled a little over 4 gallons worth because of sediment, but used 5 oz of priming sugar.

I put one in the fridge so I could sample one after one week and see what it would taste like. It's already got good carbonation, and I was surprised at how good it actually was. I'm a little worried about bottle bombs since it's already carbed well after one week. Is this a legit concern and should I start putting these in the fridge to avoid this or just let them condition?

Congratulations on your first brew!

Bottle bombs are usually caused by not letting the beer reach its terminal gravity before bottling. There are lots of things that can affect the amount of carbonation. I've found that really well attenuating yeast tend to lead to greater bottle priming carbonation.

Assuming you have a pretty typical situation (i.e. moderate attenuator, good FG, bottled at ~68F), a priming calculator says your beer would end up with 3.2 vols of CO2. That's definitely high for the style, but will it cause bottle bombs? One chart I have says that the equilibrium pressure of 3.2 volumes at 70F is about 43 PSI. I think a bottle might typically burst at 50 PSI? But the pressure in the bottle will initially rise higher than equilibrium, so maybe you are at risk.

If you can, maybe you could put the bottles in a spot where if one or two break it won't cause a huge mess. Then every couple of days open a single bottle. Once you get to the desired carbonation, you could chill the rest. That will stop fermentation and will also considerably take down the pressure (say to 20 PSI at 40F).

Thank you for the info!

Hex23 said:

I think a bottle might typically burst at 50 PSI? But the pressure in the bottle will initially rise higher than equilibrium, so maybe you are at risk.

Click to expand...

By the way ... I don't mean to make you overly concerned. The risk is probably pretty minimal. I'm reading in some places that some bottles can safely handle up to 100 PSI - so it depends greatly on the kind of bottle. And I've seen some claims that a typical beer bottle can handle 4 volumes (but those references don't say what temp, one could assume during 70F priming).

Once they are carbed how you like them, stick as much as you can into the fridge. This will slow them yeasties way down.


Pez.

EDIT Oops, didn't see Hex already addressed this.....