Help me save this batch.

[Vaeloron]

Hello everyone. I just recently got into home brewing and I got bored one night and decided to experiment. The results turned out better than I expected but I am worried about bottle bombs. Here is the story. I had a spare carboy that was sitting unused and I decided to try and make the absolute simplest ferment that I could. Please keep in mind that my intention was to do this wrong from the beginning. I basically just tossed a completely unmeasured amount of Walmart brand bread yeast in with a gallon of Musselmans apple juice. I was expecting something barely drinkable that I would taste and then throw away but I got a really good hard cider out of it instead. Starting gravity was 1.045 and it finished at 1.005 after two weeks. I had planned to rack it today but I only had 1 carboy and a steel pot so the plan was to rack to the pot, clean out the carboy and then refill it but I dropped the carboy in between and shattered it. This meant I had to bottle it immediately instead but now I am worried about the dreaded bottle bomb. I have swing top bottles so I am just considering popping the tops every day for a while but does anyone else have any suggestions on what I can do?

TLDR: I made prison wine and it actually turned out good but I broke my carboy before I could rack and cold crash it and had to bottle early. How do I keep my swingtop bottles from exploding in the fridge.

Thanks.

 

[eliastheodosis]

Hey @Vaeloron, I think I'm missing parts of the story here. Why do you think you'll have bottle bombs? Did you add sugar at some point before bottling? If it dropped to 1.005 and seemed to be finished then I don't know why you're worried about over carbed bottles.

The way I'm reading it you went from carboy to pot to bottles. If everything was sanitized and the ferment was stabilized at 1.005 then I would guess you are okay. I suppose 1.005 might be a little high with only simple sugars, but you also fermented it with bread yeast so I guess who knows. If it's at that gravity after two weeks then I think you're right that it's probably done, though. I assume you added sugar to bottle, but unless you added way too much then, again, no bottle bombs.

If I'm missing something then let me know and I'll see if I can help, though. Also, welcome to the world of fermentation. It's both extremely hard and extremely easy at the same time

PS - Burping maybe isn't the worst idea but it isn't the best one either. How do you know how carbed it will be when you open it? You could be unleashing a geyser. How do you know how much carbing is left to happen? You could be letting out the only carbonation it will have and leaving it flat and oxidized.

 

[Vaeloron]

Thanks for the reply. I actually did not add anything after. I would guess that if I kept watching the carboy for 5 or more minutes I might see a bubble escape the airlock so I am sure there was a tiny amount of fermentation still occurring which is where my concern lies. My plan was to put it back in the carboy and cold crash it but I felt it was better to get it into sanitized bottles than to leave it in a pot with a loose lid in the fridge. I also did not have a refractometer until today and my hydrometer has not arrived yet so I am not sure if it was a stable 1.005 yet or even how accurate that 1.005 is for final gravity as I hear that they are not great for final gravity readings. I do know that it tastes rather dry for 1.005. The 1.045 SG was found by googling others that have used the same apple juice. Perhaps I will alternate which bottle I pop open each day and if I feel it is getting too high I can pop them all. I am less worried about the carbonation level than the exploding bottle part. I already have another carboy on the way and I already bought the supplies to do it the right way.

 

[eliastheodosis]

if I kept watching the carboy for 5 or more minutes I might see a bubble escape the airlock so I am sure there was a tiny amount of fermentation still occurring

Hmm, then the first thing I would say is that obviously there are no guarantees here. I have never tried to eyeball a fermentation and bottle when it's at a certain gravity to let it carb in bottles. I guess if you've done it a thousand times and know exactly where it always stops then the risk is pretty low. That's not where you are, though, and that's okay. It's clear this wasn't your plan. My gut says if it was that slow then you're probably going to be closer to undercarbed than overcarbed, but I don't have the experience there to be very sure.

I think you're right with the move to bottle it. We've all been in that moment and had to make a decision where neither option was optimal. After reading the rest of your post I've got a couple more questions now

Did you calibrate your refractometer? At least just zeroing it out with some water would be good. It could be pretty far off just straight out of the package.

Did you correct your refractometer reading for the final gravity? Was it 1.005 on the scale on your refractometer or was it higher and you corrected it to 1.005? Refractometers work fine for final gravity so long as you correct for the alcohol in the solution. You need to know the OG to do that but in this case we're winging it a little. It will still give you a ballpark number for final gravity if you use 1.045. If you haven't corrected then it's definitely lower than 1.005. Just search for "refractometer calibration" and "refractometer correction calculator". You'll find explanations and calculators pretty easily.

Last question is did you throw these bottles in the fridge immediately? Typically you'd leave them out at room temp for two weeks to let the yeast keep fermenting and carb up the bottles. If you threw them in the fridge immediately it's going to slow that process down considerably or stop it completely. Another consideration to keep in mind.

You're absolutely right that the exploding bottle part is the big concern. The questions above are partially to help you understand where those bottles are right now but they are mostly to help with your process moving forward. It sounds like you're moving in the right direction aside from this unfortunate fiasco. Here's what I would do with this batch... Just drink it. Pop them as you go and certainly open them all if they start getting overcarbed. I wouldn't wait to see what happens, though. If I'm reading this right you only made a gallon. I haven't had a bottle bomb but I've had gushers. They suck. The yeast goes straight into solution and anything that's left in the bottle is undrinkable. Undercarbed cider is not bad. Drink your tasty hooch while it's drinkable and then try it again with the new carboy to see if you can make it even better next time.

Also, welcome to homebrewing and to this community

 

[bushpilot]

Hmm, then the first thing I would say is that obviously there are no guarantees here. I have never tried to eyeball a fermentation and bottle when it's at a certain gravity to let it carb in bottles. I guess if you've done it a thousand times and know exactly where it always stops then the risk is pretty low. That's not where you are, though, and that's okay. It's clear this wasn't your plan. My gut says if it was that slow then you're probably going to be closer to undercarbed than overcarbed, but I don't have the experience there to be very sure.

I think you're right with the move to bottle it. We've all been in that moment and had to make a decision where neither option was optimal. After reading the rest of your post I've got a couple more questions now

Did you calibrate your refractometer? At least just zeroing it out with some water would be good. It could be pretty far off just straight out of the package.

Did you correct your refractometer reading for the final gravity? Was it 1.005 on the scale on your refractometer or was it higher and you corrected it to 1.005? Refractometers work fine for final gravity so long as you correct for the alcohol in the solution. You need to know the OG to do that but in this case we're winging it a little. It will still give you a ballpark number for final gravity if you use 1.045. If you haven't corrected then it's definitely lower than 1.005. Just search for "refractometer calibration" and "refractometer correction calculator". You'll find explanations and calculators pretty easily.

Last question is did you throw these bottles in the fridge immediately? Typically you'd leave them out at room temp for two weeks to let the yeast keep fermenting and carb up the bottles. If you threw them in the fridge immediately it's going to slow that process down considerably or stop it completely. Another consideration to keep in mind.

You're absolutely right that the exploding bottle part is the big concern. The questions above are partially to help you understand where those bottles are right now but they are mostly to help with your process moving forward. It sounds like you're moving in the right direction aside from this unfortunate fiasco. Here's what I would do with this batch... Just drink it. Pop them as you go and certainly open them all if they start getting overcarbed. I wouldn't wait to see what happens, though. If I'm reading this right you only made a gallon. I haven't had a bottle bomb but I've had gushers. They suck. The yeast goes straight into solution and anything that's left in the bottle is undrinkable. Undercarbed cider is not bad. Drink your tasty hooch while it's drinkable and then try it again with the new carboy to see if you can make it even better next time.

Also, welcome to homebrewing and to this community

Astonishingly good response!

 

[eliastheodosis]

Astonishingly good response

Thanks! I'm a morning person if you can't tell

 

[Chalkyt]

My view is that you don't have a problem if the numbers you have quoted are roughly correct, My reasoning is...

If the bottles ferment from 1.005 to 1.000 that is only 2.5 volumes of CO2 (about 45psi), which is what most beer, soft drink etc is at, so the bottles should handle that.

In any case, flip top bottles tend to be self-regulating in that the seals will start to leak at around 80 psi. This has been acknowledged by Grolsch and also quoted by Claude Jolicoeur in his book "these will let excess pressure exit and thus avoid bursting."

New beer bottles are generally rated at over 200 psi ( Used bottles are downgraded to 75% of the "new" rating).
So, in theory you would need to ferment much more than 5 gravity points to reach this sort of pressure. In practice most people work on 4 or 5 volumes of CO2 (around 100psi) as being a very conservative maximum level of carbonation.

If it tastes "rather dry" the chances are that it is around 1.005 or lower. I find that 1.005 is about the "magic number" for a dry cider with just a touch of sweetness. This is roughly the equivalent of 10g of sugar per litre or about 1/2 teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee.

Just to make sure, I often leave my bottled cider in my cool store in a plastic garbage bin while they carbonate and have never had a bomb. You might try something like this for a few weeks.

Don't panic and have fun!