Yet another bottle bomb post

[Desert_Sky]

Ok, after reading I cant help but be somewhat freaked out over the discussions of these bottle bombs I keep reading about. Being that I just bottled my first batch last night, and left them at home with SWMBO today, I'd rather not have them go off at all let alone when Im not there.

With that being said, if they were to go off, its not the glass that gives is it? The cap blows off and lets loose a fountain of beer right? Fermentation was done. I had a FG of 1.002, and put 4.5 gallons of beer into the bottling bucket. So i went ahead and only used 3 ozs of corn sugar instead of 4. I'd rather deal with slightly carbonated beer than overcarbonated and worry about explosions. Im almost positive I'll be ok, but being the pessimist(sp) I am, I cant help but worry.

 

[cweston]

I don't see how you could possibly have a problem with bottle bombs. Your final gravity is extremely low, so there was very, very little sugar left in the beer when you bottled. And you added a very conservative amount of priming sugar.

So, RDWHAHB.

 

[Walker]

I would not be worried about your bottled popping either if I were you. You have a very low FG, as weston pointed out.

That said, I don't think you can assume that the cap would fly off. The glass itself could shatter. I've never had a bottle bomb, but I think that if the cap was the thing that would give, they would be referred to as bottle geysers instead of bottle bombs.

-walker

 

[El Pistolero]

I agree with what cweston said...you don't have nearly enough "powder" to make bombs. And even if you had finished at 1.010, and you had doubled the priming sugar, you still wouldn't have bombs, as long as you stirred the priming solution in well. And even if you didn't stir well, and had a whole lot of un-fermented sugar in you beer, it still wouldn't happen in one day.

If you ever do get bombs tho...it's quite possible for the glass to give way before the cap does, and you do hear stories of people getting cut with broken glass.

 

[Desert_Sky]

Ok, thanks for the heads up.

in T minus 3-4 weeks

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

I'm here to tell you, they are not geysers, they are definitely bombs. I had one explode a couple weeks ago and it pretty much shattered the whole bottle. It definitely exploded!

I keep all of my carbing beers in a rubbermade or at the least a good cardboard box. This one was in cardboard. It caught all the glass, but the beer leaked through, of course.

 

[david_42]

And despite what you've read here and seen on the Three Stooges re-runs, bottle bombs are rare.

 

[Desert_Sky]

I'm here to tell you, they are not geysers, they are definitely bombs. I had one explode a couple weeks ago and it pretty much shattered the whole bottle. It definitely exploded!

Did the one that exploded set any others off?

 

[casebrew]

My bomb experience was from a batch of root beer 30 years ago. Bottles definitly exploded, the caps were still on the broken necks. They went off one at a time.

I did cut myself last week when I crushed a bottle in my bench capper. I was distracted by the drip from my bottling bicket spigot- the glass under it was filling, nearly time for a sample.

 

[DeejayDebi]

In case of bottle bombs or leaking caps, spigots etc. I use rubbermaid boxes or trashcans for all brews that aren't kegged or ready for drinking.

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

Did the one that exploded set any others off?

nah, it just got my office smelling like hops!