First Bottle Bomb

[John Sand]

This post was supposed to be about sitting on the back hill, drinking warm beer. Which is how it started. I had uncovered some old homebrew, and craft beer. Those bottles were in a crate. They had been initially been disappointing, and put side to improve, or die. I'm not quick to dispose of old beer, there's enough room in back of the basement. But today I bought a full spare CO2 bottle on Craigslist. I decided to charge my IPA before chilling, and I wanted that milk crate for the CO2 and regulator. This brings us to the back hill, where I open and pour out failed beer. But I still taste them, and frankly, even the foam overs weren't bad. One seeming success was a two year old batch of Pale Ale. I had fermented it too warm with Notty, and it had a persistent sharp taste. It now had no more of that taste, though the hops had also faded, it is a clean session beer. I brought some bottles inside in a box, and put that on the floor by the basement steps. Jane and I were in the living room, there was a loud dull pop, and pieces of glass tumbled into the room. One of the remaining Pales had apparently had a bottle infection. Warming or handling put it past the breaking point and it burst. A surprising number of very small shards scattered in the hall, living room, kitchen and bathroom. We both cleaned it up, my good wife did not even complain or criticize.
I have to make sure there are no more of those downstairs.

[Inkleg]

It's like the Spanish Inquisition, nobody expects bottle bombs. Glad no one is hurt and only clean up is in order. I'll see if I can find the picture of glass stuck in the ceiling from where one went off on me.

[berryman]

John, I've been brewing for quite a few years now and never had a bottle bomb, knock on wood. been expecting it right along. Everyone from my father-in-law to the folks on the Mr Beer forum and this forum says it will happen sometime to everyone but have not had it yet. I've had a few gushers though over the time.... sorry to hear that it happened

[John Sand]

Thanks. I'm just glad it was manageable. Then I went downstairs and dug up every old beer I had any doubt about, or didn't want. About three cases out, maybe a twelve pack left. Of course, I still have kegs. I assume they won't burst.

[Foothiller]

I'm glad you got it to be manageable. After more than 4 years of brewing, I had my first from my own brews also, a couple of weeks ago. My wife said (while I was at work) that it wasn't an explosion, but suddenly glass shattering from my workroom. This was an old brew where I had taken two bottles out of their storage box, and strangely enough, the broken one's "twin" didn't even have an exceptional amount of head when I drank it. The first burst bottle in my inventory actually had been a leftover commercial beer from our county fair, where I noticed an odor when we returned from a vacation, opened its storage box, and found that the bottom of the bottle had broken off. Luckily that one was confined to its box.

[John Sand]

This might have been worse. That it was in a box, surrounded by other bottles, probably absorbed some of the shock. That none of the others broke was a plus. But none of those left were high pressure. I can only speculate that moving and warming that one bottle caused enough pressure rise to break it.

[Foothiller]

It sounds like we might have both had single-bottle issues, with similar bottles not having problems. In my case, the bottles were on a table, and adjacent bottles were knocked onto the (carpeted) floor, but didn't have problems. I figured there might have been a bit of crud despite all my cleaning, or the bottle might have had a defect, or something similar. After doing what I could do clean the floor, the nearby bottles quickly went into a storage box, but have not had further problems. (My wife had put a towel on the floor but then kept her distance. I was glad for what she did.)

[Kealia]

Always glad to hear that thongs weren't worse than they were. And I am one of those that believe there are two kinds of brewers:
Those that have had a bottle bomb and those that will.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[John Sand]

Always glad to hear that thongs weren't worse than they were. And I am one of those that believe there are two kinds of brewers:
Those that have had a bottle bomb and those that will.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I guess there are bad thongs. But thankfully I have yet to see one I didn't like.

[Kealia]

Hahaha......oh, there are bad thongs!

[Whamolagan]

You can see many bad thongs at walmart