Bottle bombs, myth or not .... RESULTS ARE IN

There's been many a comment on the forum about bottle bombs :?

Well years ago I brewed some ale that was to say the least, 'lively', but they were not 'bombs' ie they didn't explode. Too much priming sugar in lemonade bottles and I had gushers, they'd have made decent 'fire extinguishers' with the amount of spray that came out, but never had anything actually explode :!:

So ...... in the interests of science, well, more of a laugh than anything, I'm bottling this week and will overprime three bottles and see what happens, will any explode

All 3 bottles will be 500 ml identical glass beer bottles from the same batch, going to be filled to the same level and crown capped, going to put sugar for priming in the following amounts, one level teaspoon = 5g, one heaped teaspoon = 8g, one and a half say 11g

then going to be left in the warm for a week then into the garage and we'll see what happens :idea:

So the elfin safety mob don't get overexcited they'll be left in a big garden trug with a cover over them and going to leave 'em for a while and see what happens :ugeek:

I know there are many variables, ie heat, strength of capping etc etc but thought it'd be interesting to see what happens :whistle:

Well I have batch primed as little as 60g for 23 litres, 80g seems about right for my personal preference :thumb: so even a level tsp ie 5g per 500ml bottle works out way above my normal priming it'd mean a batch prime of 230g of sugar :shock:


:hmm: Totally Barking Baz ..... might end up stuck with that :rofl:

I can tell you from experience it's not a myth..

Oh can we call myth busters again please please please.

:lol: :lol:

This retirement Malarky is doing you no good what so ever Baz. Next you will be brewing cock ale and pavement pizza wine :lol: :lol:

Let us know how it turns out or should i just watch the news :lol: :lol:

It's not a myth but generally bottle bombs are down to damaged bottles. It'll never happen with a PET bottle for example.

It will also come down to the strength of the caps, although they should hold a fair amount of pressure.

ScottM said:

.... It'll never happen with a PET bottle for example..

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:hmm: wanna bet :wha: couple or three teaspoons might do it :whistle: :rofl:

graysalchemy said:

This retirement Malarky is doing you no good what so ever Baz. Next you will be brewing cock ale and pavement pizza wine :lol: :lol:

Let us know how it turns out or should i just watch the news :lol: :lol:

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This retirement malarky is bloody brilliant, I can highly recommend it :thumb: Went out a bit early this morning and had me an excellent mornings fishing, no one else about had the lake to myself :party:

.... well me and a load of fish, tench to 5lbs bream to 7lbs a few roach and crucian carp, a heron sat on the opposite bank, and a kingfisher in the bush to the side of me less than 10 ft away, glorious

yes they are elderflower champange in grolsh bottle booooooooooooooooom top of bottle other side of bed room swimbo was not verry :evil: :rofl: :thumb:

Baz Chaz said:

ScottM said:

.... It'll never happen with a PET bottle for example..

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:hmm: wanna bet :wha: couple or three teaspoons might do it :whistle: :rofl:

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Even then, there's still no chance. PETs take serious pressure, something like 100PSI+.

ScottM said:

Even then, there's still no chance. PETs take serious pressure, something like 100PSI+.

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:hmm: :whistle:

i had an entire batch that was over primed (candy sugar) and i heard an explosion that sounded like well a bomb ...trust me you do not want to do this !! i had to run as fast as poss and get my safety glasses and open the bottles but before i could do them all i had 4 more go bang and there were pieces of glass every where it looked like someone had shot the bottles and there was beer everywhere , never again (i hope) i had a few cuts on my hands and arms and it would of easily blinded me if i wasn;t wearing glasses :nono: :nono: :nono:

I once primed wheat beer to gte 3.5 units of carb and well none of them exploded but they did gushs my socket got wet and i had to change it as it wasnt a good ides liquid in an on eletrical switch lol i got a vid on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t287aLW6 ... ature=plcp btw this was when i had my mullet so dont think i look like this anymore lol.

PETs are a lot more likely to explode if you drop them!

... but of course I'm not suggesting you try that... (not without proper protection anyway)

:hmm: Totally Barking Baz isn't as daft as he thought, having (slight) second thoughts about this :wha:

I'm not going to go OTT, think I might 'lightly' overprime, the sort of thing anyone might do accidentally, just to see how we go

Might just reduce to doing 2 bottles with level spoonful = 5g and heaped = 8g which is way above my normal batch prime level :ugeek:

As I said earlier I batch prime as low as 60g for 23 ltr ..... but .... I do manage to leave 'em conditioning for a long time :hmm: well most of them, I do have the odd tester the days of quaffing 'em early have gone I manage to keep ahead with plenty of 'stock' now :thumb:

One bottle exploded in my basement last summer, I'm still finding glass here and there. Didn't found the cap yet.

But I think the bottle was faulty, others was gushers but none exploded.

Devonhomebrew said:

I once primed wheat beer to gte 3.5 units of carb and well none of them exploded but they did gushs my socket got wet and i had to change it as it wasnt a good ides liquid in an on eletrical switch lol i got a vid on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t287aLW6 ... ature=plcp btw this was when i had my mullet so dont think i look like this anymore lol.

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Love the video lol v good

If you're going to do it as an experiment it'll need to be at least 2 spoons IMO. I did a heaped spoon with my first few batches, as I didn't realise it was meant to be level, and I had no explosions or gushes or anything..... with the 500ml bottles. The 1.5L grolsch bottles on the other hand were like champagne

We used to drink the top out of a 2L bottle of irn-bru, shake it up like a mentalist and throw it into the air as high as we could trying to get it to explode. The only time it ever did anything remotely close to popping was when it hit something. Even dropping a PET with 10 spoons of priming sugar in with the mentalist yeast ever concocted I wouldn't have any fears.

Devonhomebrew said:

btw this was when i had my mullet so dont think i look like this anymore lol.

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That's more of a shaggy mop than a mullet.

Devonhomebrew said:

I once primed wheat beer to gte 3.5 units of carb and well none of them exploded but they did gushs my socket got wet and i had to change it as it wasnt a good ides liquid in an on eletrical switch lol i got a vid on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t287aLW6 ... ature=plcp btw this was when i had my mullet so dont think i look like this anymore lol.

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Now that is a proper bad mullet hair day



You had to live through the eighties to understand the cultural significance of a mullet :rofl: :rofl:

Now that's a mullet.

Devonhomebrew said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t287aLW6wpU.

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:rofl:

Tempted to do that with one bottle and play russian roulette with mates.

graysalchemy said:

Devonhomebrew said:

I once primed wheat beer to gte 3.5 units of carb and well none of them exploded but they did gushs my socket got wet and i had to change it as it wasnt a good ides liquid in an on eletrical switch lol i got a vid on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t287aLW6 ... ature=plcp btw this was when i had my mullet so dont think i look like this anymore lol.

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Now that is a proper bad mullet hair day

You had to live through the eighties to understand the cultural significance of a mullet :rofl: :rofl:

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Is that you when oyu were younger if so :rofl: