I made my fiance wear her sunglasses just in case something shot at her eyes.
Good idea!
I made my fiance wear her sunglasses just in case something shot at her eyes.
I'm not sure I follow the logic here. It seems that either a) carbonation isn't done yet, since there's very little, or b) your sample bottle didn't have enough sugar.
Why does this point to having a bad bottle? If its (a), then wouldn't the bottle have to be *really* bad to explode when carbonation hasn't even finished?
I do not subscribe to the practice that the swirling beer from the siphon hose in enough to mix the sugar. My second batch ever was a testament to that. I had a little too long of a siphon hose so it was real slow. Didn't mix the sugar. All of my 22's (8 of them) and about a six pack of the first 12s I bottled would empty themselves on the counter when you opened them. Porter fountain. The vast majority of the batch had barely a whisper of carbonation. I bought a big, stainless one-piece spoon and from that point on my bottling bucket gets a gentle stir after racking on top of the priming sugar.
I was told it was better to use a wand to force the oxygen out of the bottle...so I made the switch. But, with the wand I can't fill as high due to the volume the wand takes up while in the bottle, so I'm left with less beer in each bottle. Could this extra head space have cause the problem? Any other thoughts?
Also, I bottled a batch of pale ale last weekend and noticed the end of my siphon hose rose with the beer. Thus, with the sugar being at the bottom of the bucket and the siphon hose rising with the beer the sugar probably didn't mix properly. With the pale ale last week, I gently stirred the beer to ensure a good mix of the sugar. Did not do that with my explosive/gusher/flat amber batch.
Not sure having extra head space can cause excess of co2.
Papazian claims it can, FWIW. The theory is that since yeast is inhibited by pressure, too much headspace allows it to produce too much CO2 for the volume of beer before it reaches its final pressure (conversely, too little headspace causes it to reach maximum pressure too quickly, causing undercarbed beer).
I make zero claim to the validity of either the observation or the explanation. I'm just repeating what Papazian wrote in [i[Joy of Homebrewing[/i].
I wonder if people in higher elevations are more susceptible to bottle bombs. I'm guessing no, if the beer was bottled at the same elevation, but has there ever been anything written about this?
MileHigh, you've got me worried. I bottled my first batch this past Saturday and your process sounds just like mine down to the letter.
Ok I'm not sure if this has been mentioned yet but 5 ounces of priming sugar sounds high and is probably why you bombed!
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