Bottle Bombs....Months Later?!?

[GraphBrew]

So I get a message from my buddy who stores all of our beer in his spare bedroom. It's ideal because, A) No one uses it and B) Temp is constant and the windows are covered so no sun light. The message states that about six of our bottles exploded this morning...horrible alarm clock I'd imagine. My question is, what on earth could explain this. I understand bottle bombs but this beer was bottled back in....Novermber I think. A porter it was and a delicious one I tell you, now we're 6 down on the reserve stock!! Any ideas what happened guys? It couldn't have been fermentation and if it were over carbed and did ferment right into the bottle bomb graveyard...it woulda happened a while ago I'd imagine.


My only guess is that given the recent heatwave here in Delaware...my bud didn't have his A/C on and the heat did it....which is HORRIBLE news because we just brewed and stored a Cherry Wit in there on Saturday.

Could the heat do it?

 

[RegionalChaos]

Maybe the heat could do it. As temp raises more co2 would come out of solution I believe.

 

[Quan]

I would say it was temperature. You're right, the yeast probably stopped consuming fermentables long ago. But I bet your bottles were close to max pressure. The heat will have caused more CO2 to come out of solution and also gasses expand as temperature rises. Ideal gas law, PV=nRT... given all other variables stay the sames, as temperature rises, pressure rises.

 

[david_42]

Might also be a gusher infection. They can take months to develop.

 

[ronaldo_fanbelt]

Drink them quick!!!

 

[st0neski]

I actually just had this happen to me as well. I bottled back in November, and just last week i had one burst and found it the morning. That sound woke me up at night, but i didnt realize what it was until I found it in the morning. Then a week later, another one burst. I said heck with it, and chucked them all. I didnt want to risk picking up a bottle and having it explode in my face while transporting it. Rather be safe and lose half the batch, then to get glass shrapnel in my face.

 

[Yooper]

Might also be a gusher infection. They can take months to develop.

That's what I was thinking. If it was simply not done when you bottled, or you used too much priming sugar, it'd have blown up long before now. If it was temperature, it'd have to be 100 degrees I'd guess. I mean, I've left bottles in my house in the 80s and 90s, with no bombs. I don't recommend that, but I've done it! Not because of bottle bombs, but because the beer will not taste great after sitting my car at 90 degrees.

Something caused it. I'm thinking infection.