Bottle strength experiment

[Brewer_Bob]

In a previous post I explained that the only glass beer bottles I can get my hands on here in Libya are the Beck’s non-alcoholic beer bottles. I used some on my first batch and they seem to be doing well. It is just a pale ale primed with the standard bag of priming sugar that came with the kit. My concern is these bottles seem rather thin and in the near future I wish to experiment with carbing to style. But I don’t want a whole batch turning into bottle bombs. I want to know just how much pressure these Becks bottles can handle. My brother proposed an experiment that I am going to try.

When I bottle my next batch of beer, which will also be primed with the pack of sugar that comes with it, I will add carb tabs to 3 of the bottles. One will have 1 carb tab, one will have 2 and one will have 3. This will be in addition to the normal amount of priming sugar that is in them. I will then place them in a plastic container so if/when one or more of them blow up I won’t have a huge mess on my hands. While I don’t know the math at this moment, I should then be able to guess how many volumes they can hold before breaking.

Does this seem like a good experiment? Is there anything I am missing or something else I should do to improve the experiment?

 

[rico567]

The carb tabs seem a good incremental way to test the bottles. An online chart (which I've seen, but can't remember where) should be able to tell you how many atmospheres of pressure you are playing with when you combine the sugar included with the kit and the tabs. Personally, I just use 5 oz. dextrose per 5 gallons. Your experiment is a good design, I'd say.....get the carbonation you want without risking a whole batch.

 

[Pappers_]

If the Becks NA is carbonated like a regular beer, then the bottles are fine, no need for an experiment imho.

 

[shroomzofdoom]

Is the carb from an NA beer less than a beer with alcohol? They should hold a normal carb. I mean NA beer always seemed very fizzy to me. What about other carbonated beverage bottles? When I first started brewing, I bottle primed in screw on glass seltzer bottles just fine. I mean, NO ONE is prepared for bottle bombs...not even Libyans (sorry, I couldn't resist)