Am I making bottle bombs?

[aboman]

I bottled a Saison on Sunday. Before bottling it had gravity of 1.008, checked twice with a day in between. Went into cold crash about 2 weeks after brew day, stayed in cold crash about a week as well.

I had about 5.5 gallons of beer, still cool from fridge, but rising temps toward 50 or so on counter. I added 5oz of corn sugar.

While bottling i poured the last slushes from the bottling bucket into a plastic water bottle, squished the top together to eject some headspace/air since bottle was only just over half full. I screwed cap on and sealed with electrical tape.

Today that bottle is completely inflated and VERY stiff, much like a soda PET bottle I suppose. This is the first time I've used the water bottle trick to see how conditioning is going and I expected it to be at this pressure after a week or two, not after two days!

Should I be worried about making bombs?

 

[balrog]

How was sugar added; how well mixed? Online calculators say 5.5g@50 with 5oz corn sugar gives ~ 2.9 vols CO2 so you should be fine. But if the sugar wasn't well mixed maybe some bottles have more sugar than others.

 

[aboman]

I added melted sugar to the bottom of the bucket before racking so it should be well mixed.

 

[bknifefight]

1.008 isnt out of the question but a Saison yeast can go lower. It all depends on your recipe and the yeast.
I wouldn't assume you have bottle bombs, just quick carbonation, until you have a problem.

 

[KepowOb]

I could be completely wrong on this one, but if the beer was cold (you said around 50) when you put it in the bottle, would it warming it after your PET bottle was closed have some sort of effect on this?

I also wonder how much pressure you need in one of those bottles before it feels solid...

You might want to keep your bottles somewhere safe, and covered up, just to be safe though...

 

[andy6026]

^^^This. (two posts up)

Saisons typically go lower - sometimes much lower. But not always. How thin is the plastic on that bottle?

You can always try opening one and seeing what happens... carefully.

 

[Owly055]

Remember the sludge is high in yeast......... 5 OZ is not a large amount of bottling sugar for 5 gallons. I personally wouldn't worry about it. Remember that increasing to room temp will also contribute to pressure. It doesn't take much pressure to make a soda bottle feel really stiff.

That said, I ONLY use swing top bottles (mostly clear EZcap brand), I have no crown caps. The swing tops will not "bomb" as far as I know. They are rated over 100 PSI, and are high quality uniform products. I've had them self vent with kombucha.... never yet with beer.

One person at least, mentioned using plastic totes for bottle conditioning and storage... an excellent idea. Reduced light exposure and if one did blow, it wouldn't make a mess.


H.W.

 

[aboman]

My worry is that 1.008 wasn't actually the FG, but it held for 3 days...

The plastic in the water bottle is very thin so it is easy to detect pressure change in it.

I guess I didn't take the raising of temps into account, that would cause some CO2 already absorbed in the beer to escape, but yesterday the bottle was at room temp but not inflated.

All my bottles are re-purposed. Most in this batch are Grolsch swing tops, a few are random brown crown caps.

I don't have plastic totes, but the bottles are sitting in paper boxes in a spare bathroom with some towels on the floor now just in case (there is a fermenter bathing in the tub so they can't go there) The plastic bottle is in the sink.

 

[balrog]

+1 on the container (Owly055), my bottles are staged in coolers just in case of any leakage or anything. Plus it's easier to carry the batch around in a couple of coolers.

 

[peterj]

How was sugar added; how well mixed? Online calculators say 5.5g@50 with 5oz corn sugar gives ~ 2.9 vols CO2 so you should be fine. But if the sugar wasn't well mixed maybe some bottles have more sugar than others.

The temperature that priming calculators use should be the temperature of the beer during fermentation. You don't use the cold crash temperature of the beer. So 5 oz of corn sugar in 5.5 gallons will get you somewhere in the 2.3 to 2.5 volume range depending on your fermentation temperature.

Yeah a lot depends on your recipe and the yeast you used. But like Owly said the bottom of the bottling bucket probably had a lot more yeast in it than normal so maybe they were just able to chew through the priming sugar faster than you would usually expect.

I think you're probably fine, but I would still be cautious just in case.

 

[balrog]

The temperature that priming calculators use should be the temperature of the beer during fermentation. You don't use the cold crash temperature of the beer.

Thanks peterj, I did not know that.

 

[aboman]

The temperature that priming calculators use should be the temperature of the beer during fermentation. You don't use the cold crash temperature of the beer.

I wasn't sure what to go with. According to this calculator the amount of CO2 in the beer after cold crash is a guessing game.

I figured since I cold crashed for so long a lot of CO2 could have been absorbed.