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Hi Guys

With this recent hot weather, ive had about 20 explosions, across 3 dif brews. First time this has ever happened in 5 yrs of brewing. Only change ive made is ive started using a specific yeast, rather than the generic yeast. I have tasted the beer from the brews that have exploded bottles, and they are perfect, so no infection. I have plenty of other brews that have no explosions, so im at a loss what is causing this. 

In my log book, i note all brews that have explosions, were bottled after 10 or 11 days. The brews with no explosions, were bottled after 13 or 14 days. Is it that simple, that i bottled to early, with this new yeast, in too hot a temp ?

Any feed back would help, cause sitting out back watching the cricket with a cold beer is bliss, until i hear that dreaded BOOOOOOOOOM

 

Steve

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More info would help. Is the new yeast all the same one or different for each brew? I haven't had a brew yet that took 10 days to reach FG so what were you brewing? What temp brewed at? Controlled temp? Glass bottles or PET? (althugh I'm guessing with your Marvin the Martian description, they are glass? (There should have been a ka-boom! 😄 )

Maybe you over-sugared those bottles for conditioning? How sure are you you didn't double dose some of them? What measure did you use?

If you were at FG for the brews there shouldn't have been any fermentables except for the conditioning sugar - did you change what you use?

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6 minutes ago, apples1525229491 said:

Hi Marty.

No temp control. Bottles are stored in a shed on shelves with an open door. Def no infection, i have tasted the beer from the brews that have some explosion, and the beer is perfect. It was 49 deg here yesty, so im sure that had something to do with it

 At ambient temp 10 days is more than enough for the brew to be over. Unless of course the brew stalled for some reason. So if you have ruled out sanitation and over priming. The 49 degree temp may have something to do with it.  Soryy that is it for me maybe another of the brains trust may have an idea. 

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8 minutes ago, Journeyman said:

More info would help. Is the new yeast all the same one or different for each brew? I haven't had a brew yet that took 10 days to reach FG so what were you brewing? What temp brewed at? Controlled temp? Glass bottles or PET? (althugh I'm guessing with your Marvin the Martian description, they are glass? (There should have been a ka-boom! 😄 )

Maybe you over-sugared those bottles for conditioning? How sure are you you didn't double dose some of them? What measure did you use?

If you were at FG for the brews there shouldn't have been any fermentables except for the conditioning sugar - did you change what you use?

HI,

All brews are identical. Coopers Pale Ale. Liberty Jack Yeast. Stored in Corona stubbies.

Brews are brewed in my kitchen, tile floor, temp 22-25 deg.

When bottled, bottles are stored in my garden shed, that gets a lot of shade.

I use carbonation drops, and is not possible to over carb, as we have 2 people that inspect each bottle, plus being Corona bottles, i give another check as I cap.

Def no infection. I have sampled the beer from the explosion batches, and they are perfect.

3 dif brews have had some explosions. There are approx 25 brews in my shed.

I brew 7 vats continually, so not a novice.

Steve


 

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1 minute ago, apples1525229491 said:

All brews are identical. Coopers Pale Ale. Liberty Jack Yeast. Stored in Corona stubbies.

Not really thugh if those bottled after 10 days are exploding and those bottled after 14 are not. Did they have the same FGs?

2 minutes ago, apples1525229491 said:

I use carbonation drops, and is not possible to over carb,

It is possible to slightly over prime as the carb drops are not identical.

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4 minutes ago, apples1525229491 said:

HI,

All brews are identical. Coopers Pale Ale. Liberty Jack Yeast. Stored in Corona stubbies.

Brews are brewed in my kitchen, tile floor, temp 22-25 deg.
 

At that temp, even 10 days should see them well and truly fermented out. Could it be just some faulty bottles?

I'm new to this so I pass this to the more experienced.

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46 minutes ago, apples1525229491 said:

In my log book, i note all brews that have explosions, were bottled after 10 or 11 days. The brews with no explosions, were bottled after 13 or 14 days.

That there would be your answer.

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3 minutes ago, apples1525229491 said:

I have never tested my FG in 5 yrs

No real need if you have your set up down pat particularly brewing at ambient.  I still think if the only variable that has changed is the day time temp then that would indicate to me that it could well be the issue. 

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I recall seeing a recommendation on another forum that we need to be careful what bottles are used - they were concerned about thickness and ability to hold pressure. 

This would not seem to be an issue given Apples has several hundred of the Crownies but maybe some of them are more recent and not of decent quality or got knocked and hairline cracks and the temp pushed the pressure over their capability?

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1 hour ago, Ben 10 said:

That there would be your answer.

I'd agree. You'd think that 10 days at 25C would be enough to ferment out, but maybe liberty is slower? You need to take gravities to know when they're done, or leave all brews for 14 days.

The 49C temps certainly would be factor and can kick off secondary ferment again? I brewed 2 beers and stored them in the garage as usual and they were all good. Then we had the wave of 40+ days. The remainder have all been heat affected are overcarbed and pour massive heads.

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It been discussed here before regarding the use of light weight bottles such as Corona for refilling.

A lot people swear by them and have not had any issues with them exploding.

I will not use them as I don't think they reliably safe. I have been using Asahi bottles as they are very robust and have a good weight to them and so far I have not had any problems with them touch wood.

However I have noticed over the last few months that these bottles have now been replaced by Asahi with lighter single use ones.

Perhaps at 49c the CO2 has started to come out of solution causing a rise in pressure that results in the bottle failing.

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Yeah the warmer temperature would increase the pressure in the bottles, but that alone doesn't fully explain it because all bottles would be subjected to it, including the ones that had more time in the fermenter. 

Maybe it's time to start confirming FG is actually reached rather than just assuming it is because of time. 

Edited by Otto Von Blotto
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That sounds like sound advice Otto, I have a friend who does everything in his shed- no temp control, uses the oldest of equipment & insists that white sugar is better than carb drops, he also bottles in anything that's lying around - he is always complaining about exploding bottles. I have tried to get him to listen to others & join the forum but some people cannot be told.

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Well I'd somewhat agree that sugar is better only because it's cheaper, but the results aren't any different. 

Temp control for fermentation won't prevent bottle bombs either although in mine and a lot of others experience it does produce a better beer. 

The best way to avoid explosions is simply to ensure FG is reached before bottling the beer and not overdose the bottles, which carb drops won't so they aren't the issue here. Sanitation is also important but an unlikely issue since most of us are pretty fastidious with it. It's not always practical to keep the bottles from warming up too much, however it will assist in keeping it tasting good. The warmer it is the quicker it goes stale. 

Even though I'm kegging, I still ensure FG is reached. Not from an explosion point of view, but a flavour one. It determines how long I leave the beer to clean up before cold crashing it. However, 10 days at 25 degrees should be about double the time required to reach FG, so it's a bit of a mystery.

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