Just made bottle bombs...

[dirtylarry]

And opened them in the bathtub. Lost a batch of cider, but no one was injured

My question is: Are the bottles safe to reuse or should I throw them out?

 

[Revvy]

Do you mean the exploded ones? If you had bottle bombs they would be in pieces, so the answer is no....I'm a little confused here.....

 

[AnonyBrew]

Looks like they were bombs that hadn't gone off yet.

 

[dirtylarry]

Only 2 out of the batch exploded, but I opened the other bottles to relieve the pressure so they wouldn't explode. Caps shot off and there was a fountain of booze that hit the ceiling. I just want to make sure I didn't weaken the other bottles so much that I can't reuse them.

 

[earwig]

Did you at least bathe in the cider?

 

[PT Ray]

I've had a couple bottles burst earlier this year. It appeared to be limited to certain bottles that shared a common casting on the bottom. After emptying the other bottles it looked like, but won't say for sure the ones with the same bottoms were starting to crack. Those went to the city for recycling.

 

[AnonyBrew]

It's your call, but I personally wouldn't trust them & replacement bottles are easy to come by.

 

[Calder]

Next time place the bottles in the freezer for a few hours before opening. You might be able to drink some of them then. The cold helps dissolve more of the CO2 and reduce gushing. Also makes it safer to open.

 

[CTS]

Ok....what causes this? I am going to be bottling my prairie wheat tomorrow and don't need bombs in my basement...

 

[RM-MN]

Three things that I know about that can cause bottle bombs. Too much priming sugar or incomplete mixing of it. Bottling before fermentation is complete. Infected batch of beer.

Never hurry your beer to bottles and use your hydrometer to see if it is done with fermentation.

Weigh your priming sugar and make sure you don't have too much. Dissolve it in boiling water and put it in the bottom of the bottling bucket before you rack the beer into the bucket.

Use good sanitation to make sure you don't infect your beer. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

 

[VTBrewer]

Lost a batch of cider

Not surprised it was cider.

To answer your question, you may want to err on the side of caution, but I suspect they are ok.

Do you know how you made the bombs? They are remarkably easy to make with cider. What did you carb with and how much? Did you use sorbate to knock out the wild yeast before you pitched additional yeast and fermented...or just go with the wild ferment? Have you looked at pasteurizing carbonated cider?

 

[dirtylarry]

Yeah, I got impatient with it. There was a lot of pulp in with the juice, so it was really hard to get an accurate hydro reading. I assumed it was done, which was my mistake. I only used about 2.5oz of corn sugar to carb it.

 

[VTBrewer]

Hmm. 2.5oz is usually pretty safe on the "heck it i'm making sparkinling cider" scale up here in New England. But then again, we often jack it first.

If you often make something like that you may want to get a refractometer. You may want to anyway, they really are quite handy.

 

[dirtylarry]

I just took all the bottles off to the recycling center. I guess better safe than sorry, but I'm sorry to see both the cider and the bottles go. Patience: Lesson learned.