Cider Bombs

OK, I bottled my batch of cider about 3 weeks ago. I was paranoid about bottle bombs so I cold crashed the cider for a 2 weeks before bottling and carefully siphoned off the cider into the bottling bucket from the residual yeast and sediment. I added NO priming sugars whatsoever. I figured the residual sugars from the apple juice was fuel enough for any further fermentation to occur and carb up the cider.

Well I was exactly correct. I put the cider into 2 nice heavy milk crates and covered them with towels (shrapnel control). 3 weeks pass and nothing happend. I thought to myself, "Sumbitch...no bottle bombs" I opened up a bottle and it was carbed up nice. I should have set all the bottles in a vat of hot water to pasteurize them and halt the fermentation. Well I didn't... I had 3 bottles go BOOM sitting at room temperature. Luckily the towels controled the shards of glass. No real mess as the towels soaked up 90% of the liquid too. But now I've got 19 20oz bottles that are sitting in my fridge. I'm paranoid to let them get warm.

My thoughts...I can't just pop them into hot water now. They'll explode. Should I uncap them...then recap them and put them in boiling water? Will that ruin what carbonation they have?

What kind of yeast did you use and what was fg? How much residual sugar was in the one you drank?

My advice would be have some friends over to share however many you need to make space in the fridge, drink the rest from the fridge until you finish a new batch because fresh cider season is about here and you are in good apple country.

I used Nottingham.

I can't remember off hand but I think my og was 1.059 and I cold crashed when I got to 1.011 I think.

This is a prime example of why I should put everything down in a brewers notebook.

Live and learn...

I bottle pasteurise my cider using Pappers' method, and it's worked fine so far. The only thing I have had problems with is when my mate was capping the bottles, some of them weren't capped properly and I kinda got hit with a steaming gyser of hot apple/blackcurrant cider.

Hi Diver. I think I would open each bottle and recap it quickly, one at a time. The risk of an undercarbed cider is preferable to the risk of exploding bottles, to me. After you recap, you could pastuerize or cold-crash them - if you don't, the yeast will keep eating up the sugars, leaving you with a very dry cider and the danger of bottle bombs again.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I'll do it tonight.

If you liked the test bottle that you drank, you may want to keep at least a few of them in the fridge. Nottingham will stay stable as long as you dont raise the temp