Bottle Bombs. Yep. Advice?

[TomA]

So I have been home brewing off and on since 2008. I made a rookie mistake and bottled before fermentation was complete. I made this discovery while working in my office, hearing a resonating BOOM and immediately rushing to make sure someone hadn't broke in and thrown cherry bombs in my toilet or something. Then the creeping horror of "MY BEER" stole over me and I rushed downstairs to the basement. Growler had exploded. Weird too, it went off like a shaped charge - shrapnel all went towards the wall. I want to say "Must have been a defective growler" but the amount of yeast in there tells me I screwed up bigtime. I ran the hell out of there because, you know, I like my face unshredded even if it isn't handsome.

So donning a welding mask, affixing a handle to a heavy duty plastic bin for a body shield, I headed back down to grab a 12oz capped bottle and a 16 oz. swing top to bring outside and test. Swing top gushed massively. Capped brown bottle was carbonated. I just bottled these Monday afternoon (yeah, Halloween).

The next hour was spent carefully transferring 54 alternating bottles outside into a sturdy plastic bin. For your amusement I present this picture: sweating, several protective layers, welding mask, heavy duty cooler transporting 8 bottles at a time. We have free range chickens and a really stupid ****ing rooster. Rooster spots me, must be thinking "MONSTER. WILL EAT HENS. ATTACK." So included in this mess is me shielding a box of potential bottle bombs from an insane rooster who really hates the welding mask because several kicks into the air don't dissuade the bastard until I put the cooler down, grab a stick and chase the son of a ***** back into the woods. Laugh if you will, someone needs to.

So now I have a bunch of bottles of Bavarian Hefeweisen sitting outside in a sturdy plastic bin, weighted down with some weights so if they go off in rapid succession... I dunno. There's a weight on them. It makes me feel better.

My long-winded, winding question is this: do I A) leave them there to explode in relative safety, B) try to salvage them somehow (assuming there is a safe way with which I am comfortable to do this that hours of combing the Internet refused to give up for me), C) dispose of them somehow (I can't bring them to my recycling dumpsters because, you know. Kind of a dick move).

Or any other advice.

Always take a gravity read. No Thanksgiving homebrew for me.

 

[dr0ker]

54 potentially exploding bottles that may be at varying levels of weakness ready splatter glass shards everywhere is not something I would mess with. Maybe drink a few other brews while mourning the loss and throw them at the rooster.

Seriously though I would just suit up like you did and pop them open inside the bin. I would recycle the bottles once empty since the integrity of the glass would worry me.

 

[kaisetti]

Maybe cold crash the bottles?

 

[A2HB]

Condolences.

Lesson like you said, is ALWAYS take a gravity reading before bottling.

Upside is, now you will have motivation to make a kickass Christmas/New Year's brew

 

[dallasdb]

Was it a mental picture or do you have an actual picture?

What about opening and recapping then refrigerating them.

 

[TomA]

So pop them off and dump them? I was wondering about just letting the ****ers explode on their own, but that's probably a Bad Decision. I have spare 3/4" boards I can build a blast shield or something out of I guess. Kind of worried about them exploding in my face as I open them.

dallasdb, I don't have any action shots but I can upload a shot of the rooster if you really care. Insert cock pic joke here.

Thanks for the condolences.

 

[stella_tigre]

Growlers are not meant for carbing up, but for bottling from a keg. Not saying you're not over carbed, but it might not be that bad. There was another thread about this: chill them (put them ON ICE) for several days. Open one and see if it's all that over carbed or not. IF it is, that's one thing, if they're not that bad keep them cold cold cold

 

[PADave]

Growlers are not meant for carbing up, but for bottling from a keg. Not saying you're not over carbed, but it might not be that bad. There was another thread about this: chill them (put them ON ICE) for several days. Open one and see if it's all that over carbed or not. IF it is, that's one thing, if they're not that bad keep them cold cold cold

Same thing I was thinking. Bottles are much stronger than a growler.

 

[TomA]

Well, like I said, the swing top was a gusher and the capped was carbed like it had sat for 3 weeks. Huge yeast cakes in both. My wife says she heard them popping themselves earlier anyway, so they may be deciding for me. Just writing these off, not worth risking a hand. Thanks though.

 

[Sadu]

I had my first bottle bomb yesterday. I racked onto the priming sugar like normal but forgot to stir. Drank the leftovers after bottling and it was super sweet so I knew that part of the batch was at risk. After the bomb I put on gloves and goggles and gently pried open the caps to release the hiss. Then everything went in the fridge and will be consumed asap. I think this approach is good since the cause is uneven carbonation, so there can only be a few bad bottles and the rest undercarbed. If they were all dodgy and still fermenting I would probably dump them.

 

[Chrispy92]

I would dump ice over them for a couple of hrs in the bucket, invite some buddies over and crack them all once cold and have a bit of a party..... Once cold they'll be drinkable and then you can rid yourself of any bombs relatively quickly while getting some sort of relief that the whole batch wasn't wasted!

 

[hotair]

Make sure you wear googles whenever you are near them. A year ago I met a guy from the Carolinas that was wearing a patch. He had a bottle bomb that took out his eye. His wife told my sister that he was actually lucky to be alive. He only lived a mile from hospital and she got him there in less than 10!

Be careful!