Bottle bombs, again!!

[Roo_Dr]

Newb here again...

Am I to expect bottle bombs from the following (unfortunately true) scenario?

Bottled a batch about 4 weeks ago into glass bottles, used Cooper's Carb drops. Temp on bottling was around the 22oC mark, giving me a residual CO2 of 0.81 volumes. Left for 2 weeks in the kitchen at 18oC to carbonate.

But - idiot me thought the bottles I was filling were 375ml, so added one carb drop per bottle.

Turns out they are 330ml !!

Extrapolating backwards using an online bulk-prime calculator, this will give me a final volume CO2 in the region of 4.0.

It is now 4 weeks later...

Opened one this evening and it was well carbonated - gave a good "pffftttt" as the crown was taken off. Tasted pretty good - don't think I'd want it any more carbonated though.

So the questions are:

Only 4 weeks in bottle, am I to expect yet more carbonation?

Should I be on the watch for some bombs?

If so, when? Exams in 2 weeks - will aim to drink them all after that (not on my own, obviously ) if the general consensus is to call the bomb squad.

I've given up on carb drops - bulk priming now - so hopefully never to be repeated...

Thanks in advance for you guidance.

 

[Bert]

If you stored the bottles at room temperature for four week they shouldn't get much more carbonated.

 

[Revvy]

Berts right....

 

[Yooper]

If you can chill them down for a while, they may get a bit better. Oh, they'll still be highly carbonated- but the co2 will be more absorbed into the beer so you may have less foaming.

As the others said, though, they shouldn't carb up any more than they are now. I'd still put them in a Rubbermaid bin just in case.

 

[brian_g]

That calculation doesn't make sense. How can reducing your bottle size by 10% increase your carbonation level by over 400%? Check your calculation. I've personally used two carbonation drops for 22 oz bottles, which is a smaller bottle size then required for 2 drops and the beer turned out just fine.

 

[dontman]

That calculation doesn't make sense. How can reducing your bottle size by 10% increase your carbonation level by over 400%? Check your calculation. I've personally used two carbonation drops for 22 oz bottles, which is a smaller bottle size then required for 2 drops and the beer turned out just fine.

Agreed. 1 tab should not get close to 4 volumes in a 330 ml bottle. If it was over 2.5 I would be very surprised.

 

[Roo_Dr]

Checked again - seems to work:

Ale brewed at 22oC = 0.81 residual volumes of CO2

I weighed the carb drop - 4g - which I presumed was 4g of glucose (this may be where I'm going wrong...)

4g Dextrose / Glucose in a 330ml bottle with that residual CO2 gives a final volume of CO2 of 3.88

4g Sucrose gives a final volume of CO2 of 4.0

Happily, the beer is turning out fine at the moment, but I worry about the archived beer. I guess archiving is the problem here!!

 

[brian_g]

Roo,

I guess I was confused. I thought you were saying that 1 carb drop in 375 mill bottle will give 0.81 carbonation and 1 carb drop in 330 would be 4.0.

I guess I don't get very scientific about my carbonatiion, so I don't know how much 4.0 volumes of CO2 is. I don't know what's normal. But for the purpose of carbonation I put twice as much sugar in 22oz bottles as 12 oz bottles. While this should mean my 22oz bottles are over carbed, I haven't noticed any difference between my 22 oz bottles and my 12 oz.

 

[dontman]

Checked again - seems to work:

Ale brewed at 22oC = 0.81 residual volumes of CO2

This is not true. There is no co2 in your beer to count towards the final tally of carbonation.

I weighed the carb drop - 4g - which I presumed was 4g of glucose (this may be where I'm going wrong...)

I don't think this is accurate.

 

[Roo_Dr]

This is not true. There is no co2 in your beer to count towards the final tally of carbonation.


Everything I've read suggests that you might be inaccurate with that statement:

"Upon completion of fermentation, a certain amount of CO2 remains in the beer. This amount of "residual CO2" depends upon the temperature of the fermentation. An ale fermented at 65°F will have 0.9 volumes of residual CO2 while a lager fermented at 50°F will have 1.2 volumes. To get the same carbonation in these two beers would require different amounts of priming sugar"

 

[Kungpaodog]

I think that the highest temperature that the beer sees for a reasonable duration (a day or so) will influence the residual CO2 the most, since there is a certain amount of CO2 that will dissolve in beer (a liquid) at standard pressure at a given temperature. If you raise the temperature of the beer, it loses some of its ability to hold that CO2, and it will "un-dissolve" from your beer.

Don't give yourself a headache by being too analytical with it, though. I usually use what Beersmith spits out for a style's vols (3 to 5 grams of corn sugar depending on temp and style for 5 gal.), and it works pretty well. I don't think that it counts residual CO2, but I may be wrong.

 

[dontman]

Not to mention the fact that ANY agitation will shake loose any of the co2 in solution. Things such as racking to bottling bucket and then racking that to bottles will mean virtually no CO2 left in the solution to count towards final carb values.

Like Kungpao said, (and I believe someone else before him) you should not count that residual CO2 when calculating your target volumes.