Tell me I won't have bottle bombs

[jsweet]

I bottled a pale ale last night. Please don't make me go into the gory details, but I had to bottle it in two batches and I may have put too much sugar in the first batch. Well, I did put too much sugar in, but my understanding is that with the amount I used, I'm looking at gushing if I open at room temperature, but probably no other problems -- should be okay at fridge temp, and no bottle bombs. I'm looking for reassurance. (Hopefully!)

So the first half yielded 28 12oz bottles and I used 1/2 cup of corn sugar. There was a little left in the bucket that I just put in with the second batch, so probably it was really more like 30 bottles = ~360 oz = ~2.8 gal. So that comes out to the equivalent of about 9/10 cup for a full 5-gal batch.

My understanding is that that's waaay on the high side of acceptable, but still within bounds (just). Is that about right?

Edit: To be clear, I have them in a spot where it will be dangerous to neither humans nor rugs nor other belongings should I have a bottle bomb (even if I weren't concerned about the amount of sugar, any time I'm putting glass under pressure I'm a little paranoid -- rightfully so, I think!)

 

[BigB]

Yeah, they might be a little on the highly carbed side, but I doubt you will have bottle bombs. Consume them quickly, because after a couple months they might be gushers and nearly undrinkable.

 

[jsweet]

Will do. This is going to be my session beer for the start of the summer, so assuming a party or two in that interval, it will certainly be gone by the end of July at the very latest.

 

[HoboBrewery]

you might want to try something i read about but never tried myself- pop the bottles, allow the co2 pressure to release, cover the tops of bottles with tin foil. if your yeast is alive and is going to consume all of that sugar, it's going to be very carbonated. if you give your beer a chance to expel some of its trapped co2 early on, it may be able to continue eating the sugar and balance out the co2. no guarantees but it's better than mopping up otherwise perfectly good alcohol...and glass.

 

[jsweet]

Yeah, I thought about releasing the pressure, but that sorta seemed like a drastic action for what I undertand to probably not be a real problem... just a little over-carbonated, but not dangerously so.

If I get a single bomb, of course I will be wearing a thick jacket and safety goggles and uncapping all of them... But I'm thinking at this point, that's overkill.

 

[malkore]

You should be fine...just very carb'd.

This thread reminds me that I need to stick some bottles of pyment in the fridge before they all pop their corks.

 

[jonmohno]

Just store them well and check em every few weeks, then refrigerate them when you want. I made a dunkel called for an equivelent of 7.5 oz/cane sugar per 5 gallon and acutally the priming calc had a window of more and this was a low end of the style.It did make me nervous as it was near twice as much as im use to but currently have them room conditioning room temp for well over two months.