I just had a bottle bomb in my kitchen!

[MickDundee]

I almost died!

I was making a cup of tea and it just went bang. My wife thought I'd broken a cup. It's taken me half an hour to clean it up, rinse all the kids cups, bottles etc. It made a real mess! I'm so glad my kids weren't in the kitchen.

Do I have a wild yeast infection or something? If I do it might explain this: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61568

I bottled that beer on 7th of February so why are they exploding now? My wife has banned all bottles from the house unless they are in the fridge. My steam beer is being put in plastic bottles and I'm investing in mini kegs after my birthday!

 

[MyQul]

Wild yeast (WY) infection is a good contender.

WY aren't very flocculant and can cause haze in a beer as per your 2 beer thread.

WY work slowly (I'm guessing as theyre not as well adapted to wort as brewers east is and take longer to chew there way through sugars) so are only just exploding now. They can over attenuate a beer, fermeneting vitually all the available sugars and causing bottle bombs. I had a WY infection attenuate all the way to 1.003 once

 

[Leon103]

I once made elderflower champagne for my wedding every bottle exploded about 50 X that mess.

 

[wfr42]

Any way to tell the good bottles from the bad?

 

[MickDundee]

Any way to tell the good bottles from the bad?

Nope they all look identical. They taste ok so as long as they are kept in the fridge and not on top of the kitchen units they should be fine!

 

[cheapbrew]

I had a DJ of red apple wine explode under the bed at 2am, the missus cleared it all up as well and I slept through it all!
I got a bollocking in the morning and we've still got a slightly different shade on the carpet if you know where to look

 

[Leon103]

Any way to tell the good bottles from the bad?

The ones that don't go bang

 

[dad_of_jon]

I almost died!

I was making a cup of tea and it just went bang. My wife thought I'd broken a cup. It's taken me half an hour to clean it up, rinse all the kids cups, bottles etc. It made a real mess! I'm so glad my kids weren't in the kitchen.

Do I have a wild yeast infection or something? If I do it might explain this: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61568

I bottled that beer on 7th of February so why are they exploding now? My wife has banned all bottles from the house unless they are in the fridge. My steam beer is being put in plastic bottles and I'm investing in mini kegs after my birthday!

try superchilling one then recapping to reduce the co2. Some of the co2 will escape but There should still be enough co2 left in suspension to keep carbonation when you finally open it.

open cap slowly & gradually just in case

 

[LarryF]

Having had a bottle of stout pop once and very luckily it was in a plastic crate but the mess one bottle caused me, they're all in plastic crates now.

 

[chuffer]

I almost died!

I was making a cup of tea and it just went bang. My wife thought I'd broken a cup. It's taken me half an hour to clean it up, rinse all the kids cups, bottles etc. It made a real mess! I'm so glad my kids weren't in the kitchen.

Do I have a wild yeast infection or something? If I do it might explain this: http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61568

I bottled that beer on 7th of February so why are they exploding now? My wife has banned all bottles from the house unless they are in the fridge. My steam beer is being put in plastic bottles and I'm investing in mini kegs after my birthday!

I noticed in the thread in that link that you added sugar to each bottle individually. Perhaps one got a little more than the others by mistake? Could using the alternative method (priming solution in a secondary container before bottling) have avoided this?

 

[MickDundee]

I noticed in the thread in that link that you added sugar to each bottle individually. Perhaps one got a little more than the others by mistake? Could using the alternative method (priming solution in a secondary container before bottling) have avoided this?

Even if that was the case, it was one of the bigger bottles (750ml) so should have been OK with a little extra sugar. I don't know if perhaps the glass was too thin, it was a Birra Moretti bottle in its previous life.

I've also not had one of the clear beers in a long time so I think I must have caught those ones early enough - definitely wild yeast IMO.

 

[Sandimas]

If you suspect a wild yeast infection, it probably is. I had a string of them end of last summer into the autumn, just dumped the last of the bottles but had a fair few explode. With one batch, I half-bottled and half-kegged it - the keg got infected. I was experimenting with another batch, and divided the brew in two to dry hop differently, but both bottled - one lot infected, the other not.

I waited with a few of them to see of they'd improve,they didn't and continued to get both worse tasting and more dangerous. If I were you, I'd open up a few of the bottles to try to determine which batch is the infected one - that one will froth a lot more. I filmed opening one of my infected bottles, it's a lot more froth than you'd get with over-priming:
https://youtu.be/tML3k0sr308

Careful - I sprayed the kitchen ceiling when I opened ones of mine No point in re-capping if they're behaving like that, the infection will just keep chomping away and produce a load more CO2.

 

[MickDundee]

If you suspect a wild yeast infection, it probably is. I had a string of them end of last summer into the autumn, just dumped the last of the bottles but had a fair few explode. With one batch, I half-bottled and half-kegged it - the keg got infected. I was experimenting with another batch, and divided the brew in two to dry hop differently, but both bottled - one lot infected, the other not.

I waited with a few of them to see of they'd improve,they didn't and continued to get both worse tasting and more dangerous. If I were you, I'd open up a few of the bottles to try to determine which batch is the infected one - that one will froth a lot more. I filmed opening one of my infected bottles, it's a lot more froth than you'd get with over-priming:
https://youtu.be/tML3k0sr308

Careful - I sprayed the kitchen ceiling when I opened ones of mine No point in re-capping if they're behaving like that, the infection will just keep chomping away and produce a load more CO2.

I've liked this post but I don't think I should have because it means all that beer is going to waste!

The bottles I've had all taste ok at the moment, but I'm now sure it's wild yeast. My last 3 bottles have foamed up loads even after a week in the fridge, no matter how carefully I pour. I'm going to uncap the 3 in the fridge later and recap, the ones in shed can wait till the weekend. It's not a case of a batch, I'm beginning to think I just got the nice ones in the fridge early enough (even though it's quite cold in my shed at the moment!). My FV had 2 thorough cleans with bleach before my last brew and a good clean when I bottled my new beer on Monday so hopefully that batch (and my next one) will be ok.

 

[chuffer]

How do you avoid such an infection ? Is it the the kit or in the yeast ?

 

[Sandimas]

How do you avoid such an infection ? Is it the the kit or in the yeast ?

Good question, not a simple answer. "Is it the the kit or in the yeast" - neither, it's likely to be lack of hygeine in the FV, bottles or keg and/or an air-borne infection. Never did figure out exactly what caused mine, but I did start a new cleaning regime which was much more rigorous than before, which seems to have cleared it: clean, Oxy, VMP to sanitise, then a whole kettle full off boiling water prior to adding the wort. Maybe overkill, but it's worked.

MickDundee - if you open them all up and re-cap them, drink them quick, 'cos they will gas up again from the infection and it'll eventually taste in the beer.

 

[chuffer]

Mick, I recall on another thread you've been using the 308 probe in the FV. Did you do that for this batch? I've done the same so I'm hoping its not that! I did make sure the probe was sanitized to buggery beforehand mind

 

[MickDundee]

Mick, I recall on another thread you've been using the 308 probe in the FV. Did you do that for this batch? I've done the same so I'm hoping its not that! I did make sure the probe was sanitized to buggery beforehand mind

No this was the brew before I got the 308. I only bottled my 308 probed brew on Monday.

 

[dad_of_jon]

if it's wild yeast. star san won't kill it hot temps will - star san kills bacteria.

 

[MickDundee]

if it's wild yeast. star san won't kill it hot temps will - star san kills bacteria.

I don't use Star San anyway - bleach for cleaning and Milton tablets for sanitising. Used boiling water and bleach before I did my last batch and again after I bottled my most recent brew on Monday.

 

[Sandimas]

if it's wild yeast. star san won't kill it hot temps will - star san kills bacteria.

That's worth knowing, I didn't know that. Would explain why I only managed to get rid of mine using kettles of boiling water. Sound advice. :thumb: