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mountain

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So I had a real "eureka!" moment tonight. The special lady is out with some coworkers having a beverage, and i'm at home with the kid. He and I were in the kitchen - was making dinner, he was drinking some milk. I finished up the pasta and sauce, and thought to myself, "I think i'll have a homebrew". I'd put two 22oz'ers in the fridge earlier, and they were pleasantly cold by this point. So i cracked one open and poured it into a pint glass. It came out really foamy.

In the past I'd just poured the beer into the glass and let it rest for a bit, then topped it off after a minute or two. Tonight I couldn't wait to taste that sweet malty nectar, so i thought: why don't i just cap this bottle with a wine bottle stopper, shake it up and bleed off the excess C02?

Well, if you read the thread title, you probably know what came next. There was a loud bang and a geyser of beer shot up. To give you an idea of the blast radius, I have 10ft ceilings, and there was about a 3' ring of beer on the ceiling. I swung the 22 up to my mouth as fast as i could, but by that point there was nothing but a lace of foam on the inside of the bottle. I just stared at the ceiling as beer dripped down onto my face, ran down behind the stove, dribbled off the side of the refrigerator, and soaked my socks.


So I had time to think about this while cleaning up the floor, the wall, mopping the ceiling, and wiping down the fridge, and I think i may have isolated the problem.

If an brewing calculator calls for priming sugar in oz and I use another online converter to figure out oz to cups, presumably the conversion calculator is working with fluid oz, not oz by weight?

I have a sinking feeling that I know the answer.
 
Sorry. I'll be with you in a minute. I have to LOL some more.



Ok. Better now.

Could be that you changed around fluid ounces and weight ounces. That would suck if that is indeed what happened. Approximately how much sugar did you use in priming that batch?

Another thought is the "quick cooling" of a newly carbed up beer. We've talked about this before, but the short explanation is that the co2 produced in a newly bottled beer remains mostly in the headspace. When it's quickly chilled before equilibrium is reached, some foamers result. When it's kept in the fridge for at least 48 hours, the co2 more evenly dissolves into the beer and gives a nicely carbed beer.

I'd say that #2 explanation is just as likely as #1, without knowing more. If #2 is the problem, that is cured simply by time.

By the way, what color are you painting her ceilings? :D
 
Lol. Did you miss the part where he shook it Yoop?



:mug:

Oh, I did. Sorry- brb.






Ok. Better now. Another question- did you ever shake another carbonated beverage? Say, like coke? I bet you'd get the same results.

In short, then, I think you're fine. I'm sorry to laugh. But your post was written in a very funny way.

I bet that the beer will calm down alot once it's been refrigerated more than 24-48 hours, and that the only reason it exploded was because it was shaken. Carbonated beverages don't like that. It will cause co2 to rapidly exit the liquid, as you've found out the hard way.
 
Awfully MAN of you to share this!! I would still be red in the face and fuming like an insane person.
 
were you trying to purge the bottle as you would a keg with the shaking, and bleeding off the excess CO2?
 
Did some further testing - ended up pretty much covered in beer, but I'm mopping the kitchen anyway. I had a second beer from that batch also in the fridge. I removed the cap swiftly from that one. Immediately started foaming over, so I popped my thumb over the top and bled off pressure a bit at a time. This created a fine mist of beer in the air. tried turning the bottle sideways to aim it into the sink. This angle lowered the still-liquid beer enough to shoot a thick spray of foam (about the consistency of shaving cream) into the sink and over the dishes in the drying rack. I then aimed the bottle back up again in the sink, held a coffee cup over my thumb and the top of the bottle, and continued bleeding off pressure until foaming ceased.

So there was still tons of foaming without shaking the bottle, although the dispersal of bottle contents was a little less dramatic this time.

Could be that you changed around fluid ounces and weight ounces. That would suck if that is indeed what happened. Approximately how much sugar did you use in priming that batch?

Checking my brewing notes: OG was 1.045, FG was 1.013. Bottled with one packet of KreamyX. So while the fluid oz/oz by weight may still be problematic, it wasn't the case with this brew. The beer was bottled on 10/06/2009, and i'm down to my last six or so bottles. Next test is to refrigerate one for 48+ hours and see if that helps.

By the way, what color are you painting her ceilings?

C'mon, there's already a Jackson Pollack of beer on the ceiling, what else could she possibly want?
 
PS: she laughed her head off when I explained why the kitchen smelled like beer. For the record, she is incredibly, incredibly tolerant.
 
...so i thought: why don't i just cap this bottle with a wine bottle stopper, shake it up and bleed off the excess C02?

Fail #1. :p

...I removed the cap swiftly from that one. Immediately started foaming over, so I popped my thumb over the top and bled off pressure a bit at a time. This created a fine mist of beer in the air. tried turning the bottle sideways to aim it into the sink. This angle lowered the still-liquid beer enough to shoot a thick spray of foam (about the consistency of shaving cream) into the sink and over the dishes in the drying rack. I then aimed the bottle back up again in the sink, held a coffee cup over my thumb and the top of the bottle, and continued bleeding off pressure until foaming ceased.

Fail #2. :cross:

Geez dude. We need to get you into kegging ASAP. :D
 
Geez dude. We need to get you into kegging ASAP. :D

The first fail was idiocy, true, but the second fail was FOR SCIENCE!

The real comedy of this situation is that I ordered kegs last week. I'm going to blame this mishap on the vengeful bottling gods punishing my wayward ways.
 
I am not sure mountain should be equiped with a tank full of CO2....his family and neighbors would be at risk.

:D
 

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