Nightmare b4 Christmas (ale)

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:22 pm

Chuck and I brewed a Christmas Ale about a month ago. It has been bottled for 3 weeks. Did everything normal, used 1 cup priming sugar at bottling on 5 gal batch. Two of the thirty bottles have commited suicide.
Do I wait to dump the rest, and see what happens? Stay with them 24/7 and hope that I can catch each one as it explodes, trying to catch the beer as it blows out?
Or do I dump the rest now?
Any and all comments are appreciated. In the meantime, I will go try to suck the beer out of the bottom of the broken ones. Uh, how big of a glass shard is actually bad for your stomach?

Dwayne_Delaney · Post by **Dwayne_Delaney** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 7:32 pm

Man, that blows. I've been lucky so far and have avoided creating any bottle bombs. That can be a dangerous situation. I have heard of some people chilling the beer close to freezing and covering the beers with a heavy towel while wearing oven mitts and face/eye protection before venting the CO2 and then recapping. I'm not sure if it would be worth the risk though.

Did you stir your bucket well after adding the priming sugar? If the sugar wasn't totally dissolved, it might cause some of the bottles to be over-carbonated and others to be under-carbonated. Good Luck and Be Careful!!

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 7:58 pm

Dwayne, I took the box of bottles into the garage, and covered them with a thick towel. No more blew. I moved them to another storage area that has a floor drain, and slightly cooler 60-65. They were fine this evening. None of Chuck's blew. Now we are wondering if I jostled the bottles too much. 10-14 days after bottling, I kind of rolled my bottles gently, to try and reinvigorate any sugars that settled out. Do you think that could be a problem?

Dwayne_Delaney · Post by **Dwayne_Delaney** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 5:10 pm

I've never heard of moving the bottles around causing any reaction. You shouldn't have to worry about any residual sugars settling. Believe me, the yeast will take care of them by themselves.
Another possibility could be an infection in a couple of the bottles.

Below is some information that I came across on www.ratebeer.com:
Gushers

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:09 pm

Had a quart bottle with China Top blow, that was a mess. Another bomber blew after I transfered everything to a bucket. Everything has been fine the last couple of days. Do you think I place to high a value on beer?

Jim W · Post by **Jim W** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 8:11 pm

PS Neither one of us can remember stirring after adding the priming sugar. I figured it would mix as we transfered the beer into the bucket. I figured wrong.