Bottle Bombs

Hi everyone,

I woke up this morning to a couple of my bottles exploding in my fermentation freezer. I'm trying to figure out ways to prevent this next batch and I had a few questions. The three probable causes for bottles bombs are a) Weak bottles. b) Bottling two early/too much priming sugar and c) Uneven mixing of the priming sugar. For cause b) I am going to put more effort into taking hydrometer readings and calculating how much priming sugar was needed. For part a) I was wondering if anyone has ever used michelob bottles? Are they known for being weak? And for part c) I was wondering how people mix their priming sugar into the beer before bottling. I just dumped the sugar water into the bottom of the bottling bucket and racked the beer on top. Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Pepe, check out this thread, it should answer all of your ??'s (except the Michelob one, I don't know about that): https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/bottling-tips-homebrewer-94812/

are they twist top bottles? if so that may be the problem i would think

@Tobyone No they are crown caps.

@phatuna Thanks for the link, I'll look over it.

They exploded while in a cool/cold environment?

I'm curious--how much priming sugar did you use, and what was the (beer) temp when you bottled? Also, what style of beer are we talking about?

I've used Michelob bottles (I assuming you're not talking about any type of twist off) and never had problems. If a bottle has a design worked into the glass or is an odd shape, I usually share those with friends and family first.

@knotquiteawake - No I have a temperature controlled chest freezer, set at 70 degrees F.

@mr_bell - I was just using the 5 oz priming sugar pack that comes with ingredient kits. The beer was a hefeweizen and it was at about 70 - 75 when I bottled I believe. They have only been in the bottle for about a week now and they spent about 3.5 weeks in primary. And yeah, they aren't twist off,

I'm hoping that I can still salvage most of the bottles, I had to leave for work so I couldnt really do any clean up and I am just hoping that not all of them are exploded by the time I get home from work. If they aren't, then I'm going to carefully uncap them, release the pressure, then recap them. Might lead to them being a little flat but at least I'll still have some beer

That really sucks. Knock on wood, I've never experienced bombs but it scares the hell out of me.

According to beersmith, 5 oz. appears to put you in the range (2.7 vols @ 70 deg) for the style. Perhaps the bottles themselves, like you mention or uneven mixing?

I also pour the cooled priming sugar / water solution in my bucket. I rack on top. My siphon hose is long enough so that it curls into a circle on the bottom of the bucket, gently swirling the beer as it transfers and mixing it up with the priming solution. Personally, I don't stir after that and have never had carbonation (i.e. uneven carbonation) issues.

Yeah this is only my second batch and bottle bombs was one of the things that made me think twice about starting to brew. I should be able to narrow down the causes a little more tonight, if all my bottles go kaboom then its probably not uneven mixing. But if I am able to uncap them and I don't get gushers I'll have to try to mix the sugar better. Thanks for your help.

Someone posted last week about their 5 oz packet of sugar actually containing a 1.25 cups of sugar. Maybe they overstuffed your 5 oz.

I would think 3.5 weeks in primary would be enough to ferment completely, but you really need to know that the gravity is stable before bottling. How did it taste before you bottled (or now?) - was/is it overly sweet?

Always measure your priming sugar by weight with a digital scale. They're cheap and indispensable. Most styles don't require the carbonation provided by 5oz in 5 gallons of beer. Most people don't even get 5 gallons of beer into their bottling bucket if 5 gallons of wort went in. You lose about 1/2 gallon to trub.

Since you were conditioning at 70F I wouldn't rule out an infection. If you taste an apple or vinegar taste in your beer then some extra critters probably got in there.

I just did a hefeweizen and I put my dextrose in the bottom of the bucket before siphoning in the beer and I got uneven carbonation. My last two or three bottles were verging into bottle bomb territory and the rest were undercarbed.

From now on I shall actually boil and dissolve my dextrose rather than leaving it in the bottom of the bucket and depending on whirlpool action to dissolve it. I think I might give it a gentle stir as well. Bottle bombs are nothing I want to deal with and flat hefeweizen's are kinda 'meh' as well.

I'll be ready to bottle the Porter in my carboy soon. It sounds like getting the right amount of priming sugar mixed evenly is really important. Thanks for all the tips and things to avoid in this thread.

Well I went home yesterday and tried to save the beer that was left. It looks like it was either too much priming sugar or an incomplete fermentation. All of the bottles I uncapped were geysers. It took me a long time but I was able to recap most of them. I ended up losing about 12 of the 48 bottles. I taste one of them and it didn't taste infect. It tasted ok, but I could still taste some sweetness from the priming sugar. Will definitely be more careful now with the priming sugar and fermentation time.

BeerBrewingEquipment said:

I'll be ready to bottle the Porter in my carboy soon. It sounds like getting the right amount of priming sugar mixed evenly is really important. Thanks for all the tips and things to avoid in this thread.

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A few more tips:

Rack out of your fermenter first with water to figure out what your actual in-the-bucket volume will be. A poster mentioned earlier how you often get significantly less than 5 gallons after racking. I actually put 5.5 gallons in my carboys, if I stand the autosiphon straight off the bottom, no tipping, I get 5 gallons exactly of clean beer in the bucket.

Buy your self a nice long stainless spoon to gently give the beer a stir after racking. I know it is usually enough to rack on top of the sugar, but I had a porter that had a slow siphon, ended up with 10 gushers and 40 flat bottles.