Exploding Barleywine!

[Phydrian]

Greetings from San Francisco! Just had a bottle of Barleywine explode on me - nearly had a heart attack. Waited over a month to bottle it but guess it wasn't long enough. Cheers!

 

[Polboy]

im not recommending anything but if i was in your shoes i would very carefully put rest of the bottles in the fridge and try to open one after a week or 2 (safety glasses on)

 

[Phydrian]

Yeah, they're all in the fridge now. I'm handling them with kids gloves. Funny thing is they've been bottled for nearly two months now and it just happened. Guess the Barleywine is a slow burner...

 

[kbuzz]

what temp is your fridge set to?

 

[av8er79]

just trying to learn a little something here. Why put them in the fridge?

 

[periwinkle1239]

just trying to learn a little something here. Why put them in the fridge?

Since the bottles are under a certain pressure at room temp, by cooling them down you'll lower that pressure inside the bottle, thus reducing the possibility of one bursting. Although I'm not sure by how much.

 

[Polboy]

Since the bottles are under a certain pressure at room temp, by cooling them down you'll lower that pressure inside the bottle, thus reducing the possibility of one bursting. Although I'm not sure by how much.

this too but its rather minor, it has more to do with co2 better dissolving in beer at lower temp. 45F vs 75 will dissolve around 30% more co2 and will reduce pressure by 30%

 

[opus345]

Couple of interesting Barleywine threads:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/when-bottle-barley-wine-186668/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/barley-wine-bulk-aging-vs-aging-bottle-152668/

I'm sure there are a number of other threads with more info.

This is always a good place to let folks know about the wealth of info contained in HBT.

 

[Phydrian]

Not sure the temp of the fridge, but I turned it down. I was also hoping the lower temperature would make the yeast go dormant and stop the fermentation so that those remaining bottles aren't building up additional pressure.

Thanks for those thread links! I'll check em out.