Bottles over carbonating

[rhys333]

Yep, that's right, I bottled a stuck fermentation about 6 points higher than it was supposed to be and NOW my yeasties have decided to wake up. Leason learned.

Question is, what can I do to make sure I don't get bottle bombs. Luckily I'm using swing tops... wondering, can I pop the tops, let sit a few minutes, then recap? Will this reduce the pressure enough but maintain carbonation?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MindenMan]

Well, the jury is still out on that one, but if you sanitize every bottle before you burp it, it will definitely help. The one saving grace about swing tops, is they usually fountain out before they blow up. Give it a go, you may well be pleasantly surprised.

 

[rhys333]

Well, the jury is still out on that one, but if you sanitize every bottle before you burp it, it will definitely help. The one saving grace about swing tops, is they usually fountain out before they blow up. Give it a go, you may well be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks for replying. Do I need to sanitize if I keep my fingers away from the inside parts?

 

[Owly055]

I have been using a pressure relief system on my swing top bottles with Kombucha which is an unpredictable secondary. It doesn't get any simpler than this. I must say that I'm using 1L bottles, not 12 oz or 500 ML so the technique would require a slight mod. I loop a rubber band through the bail..... a standard wide rubber band (size 64), feed it through itself so I have what amounts to a double half hitch around the bail, and the loose end stretches down under the bottle. The bail is NOT snapped, the rubber band pulling down on the bail which pulls down on the top is the only thing holding the top down. They carbonate very well, and if you pop the top at room temp, they will gush, but put them in the fridge and they are perfect. I believe they will pressure up to about 30 PSI, but I haven't measured it. I have another system where I have a fixture I set the bottles in, and springs hold a cross bar that spans two bottles.......that does relieve at almost exactly 30 psi. Here are links to photos of the two systems:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24840069/IMG_20131231_132531.JPG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24840069/RELIEF.JPG

H.W.

 

[rhys333]

I have been using a pressure relief system on my swing top bottles with Kombucha which is an unpredictable secondary. It doesn't get any simpler than this. I must say that I'm using 1L bottles, not 12 oz or 500 ML so the technique would require a slight mod. I loop a rubber band through the bail..... a standard wide rubber band (size 64), feed it through itself so I have what amounts to a double half hitch around the bail, and the loose end stretches down under the bottle. The bail is NOT snapped, the rubber band pulling down on the bail which pulls down on the top is the only thing holding the top down. They carbonate very well, and if you pop the top at room temp, they will gush, but put them in the fridge and they are perfect. I believe they will pressure up to about 30 PSI, but I haven't measured it. I have another system where I have a fixture I set the bottles in, and springs hold a cross bar that spans two bottles.......that does relieve at almost exactly 30 psi. Here are links to photos of the two systems:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24840069/IMG_20131231_132531.JPG
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/24840069/RELIEF.JPG

H.W.

Complete madness... I love it! That's some ingenuity there for sure. I'll have to give your rubber band method a try. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Walzenbrew]

This happened to me before. It's like waiting for a grenade to go off.

This is time consuming, but you can still pop off the top and then recap it. At least your kitchen won't be like an Indiana Jones movie with glass flying about...


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