Wine Bottle Bomb

Got up this morning an noticed that a bottle of Elderberry Wine had blown its cork and made a mess in my home theater room. Looks like the cork would have hit me exactly in the side of the head if I had been watching a movie when it went off. Needless to say, it made a big mess and I had to empty the wine rack (about 200 bottles) to clean it up.

I made the wine last fall and bottled it a couple of months ago. It was very sweet but I figured that I messed up on the sugar since it also seemed pretty high on the alcohol content (unfortunately no hydrometer readings). I pitched several packets of champagne yeast through the winter, but no activity, so I thought it was safe to bottle. I filtered with .5 micron pads when I bottled which should gotten rid of any residual yeast as well. Now the bomb goes off.

I checked a couple of other bottles and they were flat as a pancake. What should I do? They remaining 60 bottles are all sitting in heavy cardboard boxes in garbage bags in my fruit cellar. I hate to dump 40lbs of Elderberries!

Paul

That bottle might have been infected. Bacteria are much smaller than yeast.

Sounds like you've done what needs to be done. Keep them where they won't cause a problem & drink up.

Also checking for carbonation in one or 2 other bottles will help to diagnose the infection in 1 bottle. If they are carbed even slightly...Look Out Sally!

david_42 said:

That bottle might have been infected. Bacteria are much smaller than yeast.

Sounds like you've done what needs to be done. Keep them where they won't cause a problem & drink up.

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There was about one glass full left in the bottle since it was on its side. It was really well carbonated and the wine was much drier. I wish I had put it in Champagne bottles and it had all done this.

I will keep in the boxes for now. Thanks!

Paul

BigKahuna said:

Also checking for carbonation in one or 2 other bottles will help to diagnose the infection in 1 bottle. If they are carbed even slightly...Look Out Sally!

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I checked a couple of bottles and they were both flat.

Paul