First Bottle Bomb

[BGBC]

I got a series of texts last night from my brew buddy saying he woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a gun shot in his apartment...Our first bottle bomb Luckily no major damage or mess.

This was a Belgian Wit that we brewed together in May. We usually bottle together, but I've been traveling a lot recently and he bottled it himself this time. I typically calculate the sugar required to prime according to style, but he just used one of the 5 oz packs from NB for ~5.5 gal batch. He boiled it in some water and added to the bottling bucket before racking. It's been in the bottle for about 1.5 weeks. He opened another one last night and it foamed over, but it was room temperature, etc.

I'm not sure what happened...Maybe it was less than 5.5 gallons in the bottling bucket? Maybe it hadn't actually reached FG (1.050 to 1.014 after 6 weeks)? Maybe the sugar wasn't well distributed? Maybe that bottle was infected? Tough to say without having been there.

They're all in his fridge now, hopefully to prevent future bombs, but I guess we'll be consuming this batch carefully and quickly.

 

[maida7]

be careful the explosions are very powerful. I have a friend who lost one of his eyes to an exploding bottle.

 

[m3n00b]

be careful the explosions are very powerful. I have a friend who lost one of his eyes to an exploding bottle.

That sucks!!!

 

[BGBC]

be careful the explosions are very powerful. I have a friend who lost one of his eyes to an exploding bottle.

Woah, crazy. Thankfully all of the bottles were contained in a closet at the time and are now all in the fridge. We'll definitely be careful opening the rest though.

This work travel thing is starting to impact my homebrewing too much...

 

[amandabab]

I'm not sure what happened...Maybe it was less than 5.5 gallons in the bottling bucket? Maybe it hadn't actually reached FG (1.050 to 1.014 after 6 weeks)? Maybe the sugar wasn't well distributed? Maybe that bottle was infected? Tough to say without having been there.

.

without you being there it could be any of those, but is all guesses.

You need to watch your brew partner bottle a batch solo, something might jump out at you.

 

[uatuba]

woah, crazy. Thankfully all of the bottles were contained in a closet at the time and are now all in the fridge. We'll definitely be careful opening the rest though.

This work ... thing is starting to impact my homebrewing too much...

ftfy.

 

[RyeGuy]

I feel your pain. This happened to me yesterday.



View attachment 135460

 

[BGBC]

I feel your pain. This happened to me yesterday.

Woah, looks like at least 3 broken bottles there and some serious shrapnel. I guess we were relatively lucky, still only one bomb so far, and it was pretty well contained. Sounds like the bottle broke right under the cap and then just foamed up and over. Didn't trigger any bottle bomb chain reactions or anything.

The rest are still seriously overcarbonated and it's impossible to get a clean pour, but at least they taste good and the cloudy pours are ok for the style (Belgian Wit).