I've just had my second bottle bomb in the space of a few days and need some advice. Details below.
I'm brewing an orval clone (from the clone brews book). Its my third batch of homebrew. First two had no problems. Left this brew in primary for 7 days, then moved to secondary where it sat for 4 weeks. I didn't check FG has stabalised but it was slightly lower than expected and had sat for quite a while (OG 1.062, SG at transfer to secondary 1.018, FG 1.014). I bottled a week and a half ago (mainly into red strip stubby bottles as usual) using belgian candi sugar (I can't remember the quantity, will need to check the recipe tonight as I followed it exactly but have a feeling it was either 2/3 or 3/4 cup in a 5 gallon batch). All fermenting and bottle conditioning has been done in a freezer with temp control (68F for fermentation, 72F max for bottle conditioning). I checked the freezer on sunday (8 days into conditioning) and discovered a bottle had exploded. I cleaned everything out and left it again. I looked again this morning (10 days conditioning) and another has blown.
I'm concerned that I may be slowly going to lose all the beers as its meant to condition for another 2.5 weeks at least. I can see a couple of options but I'm not sure if they are worthwhile (crack the beers, let them degas slightly then recap, drop the temperature?). Any suggestions on what I should do?
I'm brewing an orval clone (from the clone brews book). Its my third batch of homebrew. First two had no problems. Left this brew in primary for 7 days, then moved to secondary where it sat for 4 weeks. I didn't check FG has stabalised but it was slightly lower than expected and had sat for quite a while (OG 1.062, SG at transfer to secondary 1.018, FG 1.014). I bottled a week and a half ago (mainly into red strip stubby bottles as usual) using belgian candi sugar (I can't remember the quantity, will need to check the recipe tonight as I followed it exactly but have a feeling it was either 2/3 or 3/4 cup in a 5 gallon batch). All fermenting and bottle conditioning has been done in a freezer with temp control (68F for fermentation, 72F max for bottle conditioning). I checked the freezer on sunday (8 days into conditioning) and discovered a bottle had exploded. I cleaned everything out and left it again. I looked again this morning (10 days conditioning) and another has blown.
I'm concerned that I may be slowly going to lose all the beers as its meant to condition for another 2.5 weeks at least. I can see a couple of options but I'm not sure if they are worthwhile (crack the beers, let them degas slightly then recap, drop the temperature?). Any suggestions on what I should do?