Broken bottle
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charles
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How did you prime it? Did you put the sugar in the bottles or put it in the pale? If you put it in the pale you would have a more consistent carbonation. If the rest of them look good(no glass on the bottles) you can put the rest in a dark cooler place so the rest don't explode on you. And when you are ready to drink them try to get them as cold as you can when opening them. Btw do you have a hydrometer to check that the fermentation has stopped? Hope this helps
bigdaddybrew
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Could just be a weak bottle. Are the others overcarbed?
flars
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Possible reasons for the broken bottle.
Over priming all or one bottle - All or a few other bottles may develop excess pressure.
Bottling before the fermentation was done. All the bottles will develop excess pressure and begin exploding.
One bottle that had a stress fracture when it was filled.
Check another bottle for signs of excess pressure. Recap immediately if okay. Check another, and another if there are signs of excess pressure.
Store all the bottles in a container that can contain flying glass if you are finding multiple bottles with excess pressure. Handle very carefully so one doesn't blow up in your face.
Over priming all or one bottle - All or a few other bottles may develop excess pressure.
Bottling before the fermentation was done. All the bottles will develop excess pressure and begin exploding.
One bottle that had a stress fracture when it was filled.
Check another bottle for signs of excess pressure. Recap immediately if okay. Check another, and another if there are signs of excess pressure.
Store all the bottles in a container that can contain flying glass if you are finding multiple bottles with excess pressure. Handle very carefully so one doesn't blow up in your face.
kristiismean
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My questions would be:
When bottled and at what temperature are they at.
Causes:
Bottle had a chip or flaw
Just a weakened bottle
That bottle had an infection
Your priming solution was not mixed properly, or if doing a per bottle method, you hit that bottle twice
Solution:
Cold crash a bottle, and then pop it. If it has good carbonation and is not over carbonated, write it off to a fluke.
If the "test" bottle is way over carbed as well but the taste is good (just to much sugar) then put them in a cooler, fill with ice, put outside with a sign marked "free beer"
lol, FLars writing his up as I wrote mine up.
When bottled and at what temperature are they at.
Causes:
Bottle had a chip or flaw
Just a weakened bottle
That bottle had an infection
Your priming solution was not mixed properly, or if doing a per bottle method, you hit that bottle twice
Solution:
Cold crash a bottle, and then pop it. If it has good carbonation and is not over carbonated, write it off to a fluke.
If the "test" bottle is way over carbed as well but the taste is good (just to much sugar) then put them in a cooler, fill with ice, put outside with a sign marked "free beer"
lol, FLars writing his up as I wrote mine up.
freisste
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I don't think the top will ever fly off. The glass will break. I would have thought it would break in the neck, but I've seen it in different places.
The prudent move is to put all the bottles in a "blast-proof" vessel. Some kind of tub with lid that will contain glass shards and beer.
The prudent move is to put all the bottles in a "blast-proof" vessel. Some kind of tub with lid that will contain glass shards and beer.
charles
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From my experience when the bottle breaks at the bottom it is from a bad bottle. If you over carbed it then if a bottle breaks it will cause a chain reaction. That would hold true especially for high abv beers.
^ Good suggestions above.
Wear a thick, long sleeved shirt, long cuff heavy duty (work) gloves and face/eye protection when handling potential bottle bombs. Keep at arm's length and your face well away from them.
Wear a thick, long sleeved shirt, long cuff heavy duty (work) gloves and face/eye protection when handling potential bottle bombs. Keep at arm's length and your face well away from them.
Mothman
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Seeing posts like this make me fear my plan of saving up glass 650ml bottles for my first home brew. >_<
Brownalemikie
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Hmmm, I've used the same bottles over and over at least 15 times with no issues.
That would be my guess. If you had an over carbonation issue the bottle would be in many more pieces.
Same here. I'm sure some of mine have been refilled 20+ times. Haven't had a single one break yet.
GHBWNY
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I experienced bottle bombs just once. I split off 12 bottles for an experiment which resulted in an infection and although I used a variety of different bottles, six blew out the bottom, caps stayed on.
Yours could have been a deficient bottle. Do you know how many vols CO2 you primed to? Any sign of infection/gushing in other bottles? If the entire batch is suspect of being over-primed or infected, you can pop the tops and re-cap and get them to a cool spot, even the fridge.
I keep my conditioning bottles in a Rubbermaid tub (with the lid on!) for 3 weeks @ 70F until they're done, then into the fridge for 1 week.
kristiismean
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pick one, cold crash it, try it, best way to be sure.
HIM_Tattoos
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All good reasons listed above, the only I want to add to this, when I'm picking bottles to re-use, I won't use any that have a seam. I do believe that SN bottles have the seam, thus my mentioning this. I haven't personally run into any issues, but mention it anyways.
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mfink519
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Bottle bomb, probably due to infection or too much priming sugar in that bottle. I've seen them myself.
SmokeyMcBong
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Put it in the fridge and get it cold...
Good catch there. SN labels fall off really easy in water. I change my initial thoughts of weak bottle, and go with infection causing bottle bombs.
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mfink519
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I had a couple bottles I couldn't get the label off. This was one of them. We still soaked in sanitizer. I think these guys were the tail end.
Are you cleaning your bottles before sanitizing them?
If someone drank that Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and then set it aside without rinsing it out with water right away, it's entirely likely there is some beer gunk dried on the inside of the bottle. Getting the gunk out will require a soak in some warm water and cleaner - I use PBW but others have success with oxyclean.
An hour long soak in warm PBW will remove Sierra Nevada labels with no effort at all. Following the PBW soak you might need a bottle brush to get any gunk out of the bottle. Rinse with fresh water then sanitize with StarSan or whatever your sanitizer of choice is.
In the future after you pour a beer into a pint glass, give it a quick rinse with fresh water. I usually fill it a little, plug the end with my finger and shake it - dump that then refill with fresh water and then dump that. Then on bottling day all I do is fill them with sanitizer and dump that.
NSMikeD
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Aside from the obvious (too much sugar = over primed and cleaning v sanitizing), there was a post on page one asking about fermentation. If fermentation isn't completed, it will continue in the bottle, thus producing CO2 on top of what the sugar will add. Plastic bucket fermentors can leach air so that it may appear to be no activity in the airlock (bubbling) even if fermentation isn't complete.
To be sure, take specific gravity reading at the end. Also, don't rush bottling, set the fermentor in a cool spot for an extra week or two before bottling. In addition to completing the fermentation the yeast will then start to clear up the beer, making the beer taste better.
For now, store your bottles in a cold place (but above freezing). The cool will reduce the air pressure. It will take longer to fully carbonate, but as mentioned, good things will happen in that cool rest before drinking.
To be sure, take specific gravity reading at the end. Also, don't rush bottling, set the fermentor in a cool spot for an extra week or two before bottling. In addition to completing the fermentation the yeast will then start to clear up the beer, making the beer taste better.
For now, store your bottles in a cold place (but above freezing). The cool will reduce the air pressure. It will take longer to fully carbonate, but as mentioned, good things will happen in that cool rest before drinking.
GHBWNY
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I will always maintain that if, "We learn from our mistakes", then I must be a brewing genius!!
Of all the suggestions here as to what may have caused the bottle bomb, it could be one simple thing, or a combination of things. Either way, note the suggestions and apply them to your next brew. This 'pothole' you hit along the brewing highway will help you identify and avoid future 'potholes'. Main thing is, keep going.
I wouldn't chuck this batch (yet). Regardless of the problem, it would be worth getting them into a plastic tub with a lid, to a cool/cold area and let them ride for a week or two and see what happens. If by then another hasn't burst, pull one, stick it in a Zip Lok bag, let it warm up, pop it and see how it reacts/smells/tastes. If it "gushes" when opened, but doesn't smell/taste bad, it is probably (over-) priming before fermentation was done, in which case I'd maintain the same cool conditions and hope for the best. If it gives off a noticeably loud *pfft* when opened but doesn't gush, you may want to consider popping and replacing with sanitized caps the entire batch. But, if it gushes AND smells/tastes bad, then it's an infection and qualifies for chuckability status. Best case scenario is a single faulty bottle.
Sometimes a pellicle will form on the top surface of the beer inside. However, the only time I had that happen was after adding lactobacillus (intentionally) and it doesn't form CO2, so no bombs. (it was a berlinerweisse)
But I think most times the only indication there's an issue issue when the inside fights its way out of the bottle
I did modify a coke bottle a long time ago with a pressure meter so I could watch the carbonation progress inside. That was pretty neat. I still have that thing with my dusty bottling gear.
I haven't yet had an issue with contamination... At least that has resulted in bottles breaking on their own. I think it is a good practice to prime in a pail before bottling and one needs to syphon into the priming fluid in a way that causes thorough mixing without agitating and aireating the beer.
I imagine contamination is not always seen unless there is a blob or cloudiness that would persist after 3 weeks. Sometimes the carbonation fermentation causes a small krausen ring in the bottle which should not be mistaken for a problem.
Personally, I would see how far along your carbonation is by carefully opening a bottle and enjoying a beer. If there is contamination from the used bottles then you don't have an entirely bad batch just those bottles that maybe didn't get at clean as they could have.
I prime in cardboard boxes that are placed in totes or buckets with lid placed in a contractor bag until I know they are good.
When you primed for bottling, did you dissolve about 5 ounces of sugar in some boiling water? Or did you add the sugar to the pail without dissolving? The reason I ask is because if it was dissolved well into the entire batch of beer, you could get some bottles that had too much sugar in them and some that didn't have enough.
Don't you mean "if it was NOT dissolved well into the entire batch"?
As to reusing bottles. I bottled everything for 2 years, then started kegging. I still bottle some. I have never retired a bottle and luckily have never had a bottle bomb. I have tons of bottles but when I go to get some for a new batch they are the ones that were used recently and thus on the top of the pile. So they have been used many times. Certainly over 5 times maybe as much as 15 times.
SmokeyMcBong
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I bottle in old Canadian stubby bottles from the 60's and 70's. I bought them from an older homebrewer who had given up brewing. These bottles have probably had hundreds of batches in them. Never an issue....
A bottle is weak from manufacturing defect, it isn't going to become defective / weak over time, unless your washing them in a sandblaster rims could chip and not seal but that wouldn't cause breakage during priming.
rims could chip and not seal but that wouldn't cause breakage during priming.
GHBWNY
Well-Known Member
Let us know how it comes out.
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