Is there a danger period for bottle bombs occurring?

[JB1525230183]

HI all,

It might be a newbie question but is there a danger period after bottling and priming that to much pressure can occure causing bottle bombs.

I tried home brewing years ago when I was in the Army up in Townsville. I followd the instructions and most of the bottles exploded. I put it down to the tropical heat and gave up on it.

Now I live in a lot further south where tropical heat is not a problem. I have been given a new kit and am giving it a go again with some success. I have made 5 brews with no issues.

I am using the PET bottles now and carb drops which seem a lot safer however an thinking of putting some beer into glass stubbies. I am also storing the bottles in an old esky to keep the tempature regular and contain any mess if a bottle does explode.

Anyway back to original question, if the bottles are going to expolde will it happen in the first two weeks or can it happen at any time?

Cheers

John.

[Beervis]

I've been wondering this too, just started bottling some of my brews in glass stubbies. The oldest lot have been in the cupboard since the 23rd of Feb with no issues so far.

 

From what I've read around the place, bottle bombs are most commonly blamed on overcarbing, old/chipped/scratched/too thin bottles or infections.

[Tzen]

Hi JB and Beervis

I'm no expert, been doing K&K only, for close to 20 years, and only had 2 incidents.

1'st was KK Ginger beer from Coopers Kit, under the house in Newcastle....bang.. not good course HEAT

2'nd was not long ago here in Melbourne, bottled the Ale and late afternoon BANG like a huge

explosion,like a chain reaction 3 bottles, lucky I or the boss was not there or the 2 dogs, glass everywhere even embedded in the work bench, totally scary, found glass long time after,very not good.

I normally store all glass bottles in the broccoli containers, but missed that day....lesson learned.

 

So to give you advise:

Make sure fully fermented, don't over prime, store in brewing fridge for at least first week, 2 is better, that way you also get better carbonation, and if you have a bomb

safer and easier to clean up.

I hope this is helpfull to you, as I post very rarely hmmm but felt you should know the danger

I was in Vietnam and this was in a small way similar......shit everywhere...not good not good

Ok Signing of

Chris

[ChristinaS1]

The greatest danger of bottle bombs is probably in the first three weeks, but there are a lot of factors. Wild yeast infections come to mind.

 

Sometimes beer is bottled too early, before it is finished. I like to increase the temperature a couple of degrees when the air lock starts to slow, to help the yeast finish out and clean up.

 

Sometimes yeast can start developing more enzymes in the bottle, and ferment out more of the remaining maltotriose. I am not sure if tropical heat makes yeast more likely to do this. Just in case, best to keep your bottles at 20-23C during the first three weeks, and then move them somewhere cooler, to prevent staling.

 

Cheers,

 

Christina.

[Tzen]

I knew there was some experts here, there always is !

[headmaster]

Had a craft brew, a stout the other day that a friend gave me, it actually was a gold medal winning brew, may have been at the Easter show. In any case this was a good year old and the guy who gave it to me didn't like stouts. Even though it was made by a commercial brewery, it too was so overcarbonated it was at risk, crown seal popped like champagne..

 

Beers with a lot of residual sugars, like stouts, are more at risk of this for the reasons mentioned by Christina, but usually takes a long time (months) and I think higher temperatures/bad storage conditions.

[Beervis]

The greatest danger of bottle bombs is probably in the first three weeks' date=' but there are a lot of factors. Wild yeast infections come to mind.

 

Sometimes beer is bottled too early, before it is finished. I like to increase the temperature a couple of degrees when the air lock starts to slow, to help the yeast finish out and clean up.

 

Sometimes yeast can start developing more enzymes in the bottle, and ferment out more of the remaining maltotriose. I am not sure if tropical heat makes yeast more likely to do this. [img']unsure[/img] Just in case, best to keep your bottles at 20-23C during the first three weeks, and then move them somewhere cooler, to prevent staling.

 

 

Thanks Christina, this is really helpful. I usually store mine in a cupboard under the stairs for about 5 weeks, the floor is concrete and it's in the middle of the house so I doubt the high temps we get outside make it all the way in there. I usually start drinking them after 5 weeks but I don't have much fridge space so some brews stay in there for months after they're carbed and conditioned.

 

I recently discovered a batch of Bock (in PETS's) was completely dead, all flat as a tack except one. After this and having read that you shouldn't age beer for longer than 6 months in PET's I've decided to start lagering/storing in a fridge after 5 weeks. This means I have a tonne of beer I have to drink before I start brewing again.

 

If I want to age a stout for a year or so, like Headmaster mentioned there is some increased risk probably? If I use one carb drop per glass longneck and keep it somewhere dark and cool I'm thinking this would be ok... not sure if it's a good idea to age stout in a fridge for months?

 

Paul

[The Captain!!]

To prevent early staling, treat beer like milk.

 

Keep it cold.

 

As Christina mentioned there’s other factors in beer staling. One of the main ones being oxygen, or beer being oxydised.

The more oxygen in your beer the quicker it becomes oxydised, and the warmer it is the quicker the oxygen reacts to mate it oxydise.

 

Cheers

Captain.

 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Staling doesn't cause the bottles to blow up though. The only thing that causes that is too much pressure inside the bottle. This could be caused by incomplete fermentation, too much priming sugar, a bottle infection, or the yeast secreting that enzyme that breaks previously unfermentable sugars down into fermentable ones, however this is highly unlikely to occur in the first weeks, it's something that tends to happen months down the track.

 

Long story short, any time after putting the caps on the bottles is a danger period for bombs if something has been done incorrectly. It's sometimes recommended to reduce the priming rate for beers that are gonna be stored for long periods, partly because these styles are usually lower in carbonation anyway, but also due to the enzyme possibly making an appearance.

[ChristinaS1]

If you want to age a brew for a long time it is a good idea to add a bottling yeast like Safbrew F-2, or Lellemand CBC-1 when you prime. This is what a lot of commercial breweries use, to avoid over-carbonation, but it sounds like the maker of that beer Headmaster tried didn't get the memo and bottled with their original strain.

 

These specialized bottling yeast will kill off your original strain within hours, but can only ferment priming sugar, not maltotriose. Lots of home brewers use Lellemand EC-1118 champagne yeast for this purpose instead, which does exactly the same thing and is cheaper.

 

If you use one of these bottling type yeast, you do not have to reduce your priming rate to try to head off over-carbonation due to the yeast producing more enzymes in the bottle.

 

F-2, CBC-1, and EC-1118 are flavour neutral. They will not ruin your beer.

 

Cheers,

 

Christina.

 

 

[The Captain!!]

If you want to age a brew for a long time it is a good idea to add a bottling yeast like Safbrew F-2' date=' or Lellemand CBC-1 when you prime. This is what a lot of commercial breweries use, to avoid over-carbonation, but it sounds like the maker of that beer Headmaster tried didn't get the memo and bottled with their original strain. [img']lol[/img]

 

These specialized bottling yeast will kill off your original strain within hours, but can only ferment priming sugar, not maltotriose. Lots of home brewers use Lellemand EC-1118 champagne yeast for this purpose instead, which does exactly the same thing and is cheaper.

 

If you use one of these bottling type yeast, you do not have to reduce your priming rate to try to head off over-carbonation due to the yeast producing more enzymes in the bottle.

 

F-2, CBC-1, and EC-1118 are flavour neutral. They will not ruin your beer.

 

Cheers,

 

Christina.

 

 

Well Christina there’s another thing I’ve learnt from you about yeast strains and characteristics of those yeast strains.

Thanks for sharing.

 

Cheers,

Captain

[JB1525230183]

Thank you all for your reply.

There seems to be no straight forward answer. Just sever reasons why it happens occasionally, at any time during the conditioning / storage process.

I have never heard of bottling yeast, and found that very interesting.

Cheers all and thank you again.

[rossm]

Ah, the old bottle bomb...I have had a lot in my early days of brewing, usually the odd one due to, I think unclean bottles ie that is a little bit of something left stuck inside the bottle which got things brewing again after bottling. I did brew in stubbies those days, ones clearly marked "No Refill".... I lived in Alice Springs then and only brewed in the shed, so as you should be able to imagine, there was very little temperature control!

I did have one major calamity though, lost about 130 stubbies....some of the older members may have seen my story because I have told it before. I had been at a mates place and we were drinking a brew that his son had made, it was pretty bloody good and we got stuck into it pretty well. I made comment that it was a lot better than most I was making at the time, my mates wife said that he had doubled the priming sugar and that was what made it so much better, i argued with her that it would have been the brewing sugar not the priming sugar but she convinced me that it was the priming sugar so I tried it, no ill effects so I continued the next couple of brews the same.

About three or four weeks later the weather started to warm up....then the shit hit the fan!....they started going off one after the other, one would go off and set a row off...it was like a terrorist attack!

I stopped doing that then but it prompted me to write this little poem which some of you may have seen also....sorry to hijack your thread JB...I just couldn't resist....

 

“GIDGEE JACKS’ LAST BEER”

Ross Magnay 12/11/08

 

Gidgee Jack was quite a drinking man he had been all his life,

and it cost him all his money, his station and his wife.

So Jack moved to the city, and commenced on council pay,

but what he earned in one whole week, he drank in just one day!

 

Now Jack was not a spirits man, he mostly fancied ale,

and the pace that he consumed it would turn Ernie Dingo pale!

A dozen pints at knock off time, some longnecks for the track,

yes he was quite a drinking man, was our mate Gidgee Jack.

 

But mowing grass and raking leaves, would not support his thirst,

and Jack was suicidal, (or something even worse!)

Then an idea struck him, just like lightning from the blue,

“I’ll get myself a flamin’ kit, and make me own homebrew!”

 

So next day in his lunch break, Jack found a brewing shop,

“I need a flamin’ home brew kit the biggest one you got!”

“I’ve saved a stack of longnecks all cleaned and like brand new,”

“just waitin’ home for me to fill with this here flamin’ brew.”

 

That night Jack started brewing with diligence and care,

he had brewing kits and Coopers tins, scattered everywhere.

but it finally got together, and the brew began to work,

Jack sat down with a longneck, and a happy little smirk.

 

Then came the time to bottle, and Jack could wait no more,

so with measuring things, and capping things and bottle tops galore,

he pored through the instructions, till he found the bit that said,

“Six grams of brewing sugar will ensure it holds its head.”

 

Now Jack was not a metric man he never found the need,

to measure things too accurate, mostly “miles” or “tons of feed.”

And converting grams to ounces, (well he got on top of that.)

so he started priming bottles till he nearly filled his flat.

 

He filled them up and capped them off, the way the booklet said,

then happy and contented, Jack stumbled off to bed.

He dreamed about the finished brew, and two weeks down the track,

when he would crack some longnecks, and knock a couple back.

 

A week had passed since bottling day, five days of mowing lawn,

and Jack thought, “I feel buggered” as he stretched and gave a yawn.

I think I’ll have an hours camp, before I cook some tea,

I ‘spose a bloke is not as young, as what I used to be.

 

 

 

But as Jack drifted off to sleep, there came a frightening bang,

Like gelignite exploding, or a car just had a prang.

And then another followed, a bang and then a crack,

Jack thought “Well I’ll be buggered, it’s a terrorist attack!

 

Jack’s three o three was underneath the bed that he was in,

He hit the floor and grabbed the gun, and shoved the “maggy” in.

“I’ll show you bloody ragheads, a thing or two.” he said,

he fired two shots out through the door from the cover of his bed.

 

But the firing it intensified and then a rattling run,

Jack thought, “The bloody bastards must have a gattling gun!”

the bangs and loud explosions, shook the block of flats complete,

as a crowd began to gather on the footpath by the street.

 

He fired three shots blindly, they went through the Gyprock wall,

“Give up you raghead bastards,” the crowd heard Gidgee call.

But Jack was out of ammo, and trapped behind his bed,

to contemplate his future, he well could wind up dead!

 

Old Jack was not a coward, a tough old station man,

he kept down low behind his bed, to formulate a plan.

though the firing still persisted, it was getting less and less,

and Jack could sense an ending to this terrorizing mess.

 

He thought, “patience is a virtue, I’ll sit and wait it out,”

“They must be low on ammo, I’ll wait till they run out.”

and then at last the firing stopped, Jack rushed up to the door,

but near reduced to tears, he saw his homebrew on the floor.

 

That really got Jacks’ dander up, brought scarlet to his face,

“I never knew that terrorists, were such a lowly race,

smash a fella’s beer supply, and then just wreck the joint,

then disappear without a trace, I just don’t see the point.”

 

So spirit still unbroken, but a different view on life,

Jack rolled his swag, and packed a bag, swore off the grog for life.

He set himself to trampin’, back out amongst the bush,

away from crazy terrorists, and the hectic city push.