Emergency Bottleing Crisis!!! Help!!!

[arcto]

Hey all again.
I recently bottled a quiet expensive kit beer (cost me 80GBP to get it here) and 2/3 of the bottles are Budweiser Budvar bottles.
The caps arent holding the pressure on these bottles and are leaking and venting the gas. The other 1/3 of the bottles are Baltika bottles and they are fine. Is there anything i can do to save the beer or is it too late? Theyve been in bottle for 3 days. Help!?!?!

 

[Suthrncomfrt1884]

Anything you do at this point is risking oxidation. You can try slowly pouring them back into a bottling bucket and adding a little more corn sugar. Then re-bottle them in correct bottles. The reason I'm concerned about this method is I doubt you can get all the yeast from the bottom of the bottle without oxidizing your beer. If you have keg setup, you could always put them in a keg and carb it with co2.

 

[phatuna]

Go to the store and buy 4-5 gallons of apple juice, wine or whatever you can find that comes in 1 gallon jugs (preferrable glass).
Empty the contents of those jugs
sanitize the jugs
pop open the Budvar bottles
pour contents into the new jugs
screw the caps on the new jugs tightly
contact the store that you bought the kit from and tell them about your problem

 

[arcto]

Go to the store and buy 4-5 gallons of apple juice, wine or whatever you can find that comes in 1 gallon jugs (preferrable glass).
Empty the contents of those jugs
sanitize the jugs
pop open the Budvar bottles
pour contents into the new jugs
screw the caps on the new jugs tightly
contact the store that you bought the kit from and tell them about your problem

Cheers but its not there fault. I guess budvar bottles were never ment to be re-capped. Live and learn, eh?

Bloody waste of alot of good beer, and effort.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

Cheers but its not there fault. I guess budvar bottles were never ment to be re-capped. Live and learn, eh?

Bloody waste of alot of good beer, and effort.

It has only been in the bottles for three days....I'd do as suggested above and transfer it CAREFULLY into the gallon jugs. or even into new bottles. I probably would not add more sugar either...if you were three weeks into it I'd think differently but only three days seems like you can still salvage it to me....And I'd call the store also..not their fault but maybe they will have sympathy and give you a break on your next excursion.

 

[phatuna]

Cheers but its not there fault. I guess budvar bottles were never ment to be re-capped. Live and learn, eh?

Sorry, I thought that your kit came w/ the bad bottles...

good luck, you can salvage this! Let us know how it turns out.

 

[arcto]

Ok now the other bottles started to explode (Baltika) I began opening them (wearing very long thick rubber chemical gloves i have for some reason i cannot remember and safety glasses) and one of the beer "gushes" went 15 feet
Had to dump the whole batch.
What im wondering is: Is .5 Kilo's of brewing sugar too much for 22 liters of beer? Apparently it would seem so

Well i guess thats why i post in the beginners forum

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Ok now the other bottles started to explode (Baltika) I began opening them (wearing very long thick rubber chemical gloves i have for some reason i cannot remember and safety glasses) and one of the beer "gushes" went 15 feet
Had to dump the whole batch.
What im wondering is: Is .5 Kilo's of brewing sugar too much for 22 liters of beer? Apparently it would seem so

Well i guess thats why i post in the beginners forum

.5 kg is WAY WAY WAY too much sugar! (17 oz +). It's about 3-4 times as much as you need, depending on the style.

Try this calculator:

http://www.collectionsoft.com/mybrewcollection/bp0.html

Also, if your Budweiser Budvar bottles are green like they are here you shouldn't be using them anyway. Try to use brown glass if at all possible. I drink a ton of Erdinger here and use those bottles...

Best of luck with the next batch.

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

What im wondering is: Is .5 Kilo's of brewing sugar too much for 22 liters of beer?

Whoa that's a lot of sugar. 22 liters is a little more than 5.5 gallons and .5 kilos is equal to 17.6 oz! Usually people use 4-5 oz per 5 gallon batch.

Oh and pictures of a 15 ft gusher would be nice.

 

[arcto]

Oh crap, i just checked the other bag of brewing sugar i have. It wasnt .5kg....it was 1kg.... lmao.
Total fail batch. Problem was the kit i used had to be imported and cost a fortune, as far as kits go. Oh well, live and learn! My other batch should be ready soon anyway

Also: Why cant you use green bottles?

 

[dantodd]

sorry that you had such a mess of this batch. I will point out though that using juice bottles etc. as some have suggested is a HORRIBLE idea. They are not meant to take the pressure of carbonation (even if you used the right amount of sugar) and will bust at much lower pressures than the bottles you have exploding now.

ONLY USE BOTTLES DESIGNED FOR PRESSURIZED BEVERAGES. I really like champagne bottles as they are super strong and I can always get them cheap or free.

Sometimes people have trouble getting certain bottles to seal properly because of the lip height not providing adequate grip. This may be the case with your Budvar bottles. Folks with this problem often have better luck using a bench capper.

You can take a bottle of Budvar to your LHBS and open it and re-cap it with their bench capper. Check for a good seal by shaking it up. This will tell you if the bench capper will solve your problem.

Good luck with your next batch.

BTW: Green bottles permit more UV to hit the beer and will "skunk" the beer.

 

[Nurmey]

Green bottles will work if you keep them out of the light. Boxes work great for this purpose.

Next time use 120 - 140 grams of priming sugar per 19 liter batch. We don't like our friends to have glass shrapnel flying around their houses.

 

[MattHollingsworth]

Yeah, green glass *can* be okay if kept out of the light. But they skunk easily. If you're giving bottles to friends, you can't control if they keep them in the dark or not.

If you wanna see what skunking is like, buy a CAN of Heineken as well as a bottle in green glass. Leave the bottle in the sun for a day or two, then chill both and compare. The green one should be skunked.

 

[arcto]

Cheers guys.
I used Bullmers bottles for my other batch and they sealed perfectly and none exploded.....then again i didnt throw about 20 times the amount of sugar into them

I must try that with the Heiniken, allthough i dont like their cans. Ill use 2 bottles and leave one out in the "sun" (winter in Ireland ).

Thanks!