Bursting Bottles!

I had a 12-ounce bottle of yeasty homebrew from a friend do the same thing a month or two ago down in my basement. Except the bottle blew into more than 20 pieces, including a tony one that I found in my foot a few days ago. The beer was in an open-topped box; glass and liquid flew a good five feet in all directions.

 

Yeah, you hit it I think. If it is bottle conditioned you have to watch the temperature closely or fermentation can potential start again.

 

I thought that the amount of yeast and sugar added for conditioning was calibrated such that by the time proper carbonation is achieved, there's nothing left for the yeast to eat. Unless, I guess, if there are other bugs in it.

 

This is correct, anything outside of that is actually recall material.

 

I had a 5-gallon carboy full of partially-fermented (sticky!) IIPA explode. The kreusen rose up into the airlock and clogged it due to violent fermentation. Thankfully it was wrapped in a blanket, which contained the hundreds of pieces of glass, but there were 5 gallons of sticky wort sprayed everywhere in the basement and a massive puddle.

Now we exclusively use blow-off tubes in primary.

 

Wow! I'm surprised the stopper didn't get blown out before the glass blew. One more reason why I'm glad I ferment in a chest freezer.

 

I couldn't believe it either! Needless to say, it was a disaster.

 

The bottle was probably flawed. Especially if just the bottom came off. There is an industry term for these bottles, but I don't remember the name. There was a good discussion on this when Life and Limb bottles were going.

 

Had it happen to an '09 Doggie Claws, discussed here.

 

Sierra Nevada has issues with this. There were multiple reports of Life & Limb 2 doing this, but never any followup/response from the brewery, at least that I was able to find.

 

I'm 99.99999% certain the someone from SN posted and was very gracious. This was before the BA forums hit critical mass.

 

I had this happen with a growler once, was like a shotgun going off in the tiny room at 4AM

 

I've got a SN Ovila Dubble that I will now be drinking sooner rather than later to avoid this...

 

sierranevadabill posted about it. pretty sure they tested bottles, determined it was a bottle flaw.

re: bottle conditioned beers start fermenting again if it's too hot, this is not true. the yeast has already eaten up all the fermentable sugar. for one, you can bottle condition at cellar temp anyway, so it's not like it was too cold, but more importantly, two, there's nothing left to ferment.

infection would result in some more CO2, but i doubt it was that. it was almost certainly a bottle flaw. see pipeworks's post in this thread.

 

Right and there's an industry name for the flaw too. Anyone remember what it's called? A comet or something like that. Last time it was mentioned I Googled the term and found some pictures.

 

I used to work summers in a bottling plant that did carbonated water. (Like Perrier). We had explosions, all due to poor glass. Fun times. If the glass is flawed but holding out, anything that causes a pressure change can put it over the top. Temps, altitude, bumping it etc.