Potential Bottle Bombs

[indigo]

Hey, all:

I bottled my second batch of cider yesterday (5th brew altogether), and for the first time I tried using some priming sugar to give it some carbonation. I did a batch-priming process, following a recipe I found on here somewhere for a 1.5c sugar/1c water solution, then adding 1.25c of the resulting syrup to my secondary (bottling) bucket for 24 hours before bottling.

I know I didn't let the syrup cool long enough before adding it, so I'm hoping that I just killed off any active yeast that may have remained in my secondary (I tried to avoid bringing in any yeast since the last time I accidentally got some in my bottles it ruined half a batch of stout).

In the end, I bottled 40 12-oz bottles (about 3.75 gallons) of the batch, and now I'm really concerned that I may have added way too much priming sugar to this, and now I've just got a couple cases of bombs waiting to go off. The recipe I followed for the syrup was expecting a full 5-gallon batch.

I'm hoping that the combination of not bringing in much yeast from the primary, and pouring near-boiling syrup into my secondary will have accidentally minimized this potential, but still. I don't know how long it takes for bottle bombs to start going off. I was hoping to start drinking this around the holidays, and giving a few six-packs as gifts to friends who enjoyed my cider last year.

So, what should I expect? Will these start going off right away, or is it going to take a couple months for them to start blowing? They've only been in the bottles for a day, so they're not showing any signs of carbonation yet. I've got a couple sample bottles set aside for checking (the bottom of the barrel bottles, most likely to have any live yeast in them).

I know, I know, relax, don't worry, all that.

 

[donjr721]

You need yeast in order to carbonate, otherwise you are just sweetening your brew by adding priming sugar. The only way to carbonate without the use of yeast is by kegging and force carbonating

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[SenorPepe]

I don't know how much sugar 1.5 cups is, but you almost certainly didn't kill off/leave behind all your yeast.

 

[donjr721]

You need yeast in order to carbonate, otherwise you are just sweetening your brew by adding priming sugar. The only way to carbonate without the use of yeast is by kegging and force carbonating. I typically only use 2/3 cup of sugar you may be ok if there aren't alot of yeast remaining. Put the bottles in a cooler in case they do explode

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[donjr721]

I typically use only 2/3 cup of sugar. You maybe fine if there isn't a lot of viable yeast remaining

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[SenorPepe]

I'm not a thermodynamics expert but adding 1.25 cups of liquid at any temperature is not going to raise the temperature of almost 4 gallons enough to do any harm...maybe the yeast in the immediate area of where it mixed in got killed, but to my understanding essentially the whole liquid would have to be 90 degrees plus to effectively kill off the yeast. When people pasteurize beer with heat, they heat it up to somewhere around 150 IIRC. Incidentally, you might want to look into Papper's stovetop pasteurization method.

 

[indigo]

Well, no explosions yet, so I've still got my fingers crossed!

SenorPepe: Yeah, it didn't make sense to me that such a small amount of liquid would do any significant damage to what yeast (if any) remained in the bucket, but there's so much about this process that I'm still only starting to understand.

DonJr: I've thought about kegging a lot lately, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far yet - I'm not a big beer drinker generally (only a couple a week at most), and I didn't think I'd ever make enough to warrant kegging, but then I started reading about the 5-gallon kegs and I kind of like the idea of having a little kegerator with a couple taps on it. It's an investment I'm not prepared to make right now, though.

 

[bomberman]

I almost never wait for my priming solution to cool before adding it to the bucket, and all beers have carbed up just fine (I know yours is cider, but still). That process sounds like it leaves a lot of room for error though, a priming calculator would be a safer bet in the future.

Saving a few bottles to open in intervals is good idea IMO. Better to be on the cautious side when there's a chance for bottle bombs.