BeerBorg

It is with great sadness that I note a horrible two weeks in my life. On Friday, September 16th, I had my first bottle bomb (I read that if you type it smaller it did not happen). Sob, sob. 33.8 beautiful ounces of Oatmeal Stout blew out the bottom of a Mr. Beer PET bottle. Mostly contained to one box, plus dripping, and a puddle on the basement floor.

Then, tragedy struck again. A week later another blew, this time a Rick Slobbers All Over. Again the 33.8 PET bottles, and again blew out the bottom. This one shot like a rock up in the plastic tub it was in, smacked the top against shelf above it, and sent beer 20 feet in all directions. THE HORROR, THE HORROR! I immediately put all remaining 33.8 PETs in the fridge, and will be tossing each as they are emptied. FYI, these were brewed nearly two months apart, and none of the other sizes have had any issues.

But, it gets worse. Last night had the neighbors over for a meet and drink, and the husband had an I Failed To Jump Over The White House Fence Honey Ale. When they left, 1/2 the glass remained. I commented on this to my wife, and poured it down the drain. About ten minutes later we went to sit down for some leftover pizza and I said "hey, where's my Porter?" This would be my No Lightfoot, a clone of the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter by Great Lakes Brewing, possibly the favorite of all my brews. My wife gasped and said "I thought that was his and poured it down the drain".

OH MY GOD! SHE POURED 1/2 A BEER DOWN THE DRAIN! After nearly 38 years together she still has not learned the importance of beer in my life?

I will be evaluating things over the next little bit to decide what steps I must take for the betterment of beer worldwide.

You been married for 38 years? Heck, you must be much older than me. I don't feel so bad now.

At least your bottles blew up. I had a 740ML PET that was sitting in the box, but empty except for about 1/8" of trub, but the bottle was intact and still somewhat pressurized, yet all the beer that was in it was all over the bottom of the box and dried up. How the beer got out, I haven't figured out. The bottle holds water. And no I'm not making this up.

Imagine of you had that to contemplate as well as your wife's irresponsible treatment of beer.

joechianti wrote:You been married for 38 years? Heck, you must be much older than me. I don't feel so bad now.

No Joe, I feel confident that you are older. Not married nearly 38 years, together that long. Married nearly 36 years. If I had to guess, I'd put you around 64?

She can't tell the difference between a porter and a honey ale?

She didn't recall what he was drinking, she was talking with his wife.

RickBeer wrote:OH MY GOD! SHE POURED 1/2 A 16.9 OUNCES OF BEER DOWN THE DRAIN!

ftfy

Actually, it was 1/2 a twelve ouncer. 6 oz of beer. The quantity is not the issue, it's the principle.

Rick if she doesn't mind that you keep another woman on the side, in your beer forum I mean , have her PM me and I'll have a girl to girl talk with her about how to treat beer properly.

But seriously a bottle bomb in a PET bottle I didn't know that could even happen.

Look on the bright side though, no glass shards in the walls and ceiling.

Was it infection or over carbing? At least with the PETs once warned they can be bled off.

Sorry for your loss... and that your honey ale or your neighbor sucks.

It was neither. I believe that over time the bottles just developed weaknesses. Another brewer of around the same duration (4+ years) has had similar issues. They are now all in the frig to prevent further problems.

It seems odd that a stout would have been the beer to trigger the weak spot.

Any idea how many brews they lasted for?

I wonder if the weak spots would show up under a bright light against the empty plastic. I look for hairline cracks etc. in my glass when I'm fixing to put them on the bottle tree and have caught several that had flaws.

Yeah, a Stout and a clone of Moosedrool.

I did not track the bottles, I did track the caps. No cap has gone more than 7 usages, so bottles are around there at most.

To me, it's not worth keeping them any longer. I had 16, 2 went, so I'm just going to dispose of them as I empty them. I have a batch of 25 oz that I got more recently, and will look at maybe acquiring more of that size, perhaps in glass if I can find them.

You didn't track the bottles? You're kidding right???

If you keg, you will never have another bottle bomb, just sayin. Sorry for your loss, and your neighbor needs an intervention on alcohol abuse. Leave an empty beer, he might as well as slapped you.

I'm fairly certain that the bottle in question in my case was used 1x or 2x at max. I got them from Dawg, and I think Dawg didn't use them for very long.

I wish mine had a big hole like that, at least I could explain what happened.