Have I Created Bottle Bombs!?

[LightLager]

When I started and was doing kits, I found that they foamed somewhat during bottling with dex. Just crank the flow rate back a bit and you'll be right.

I am glad that others have experienced this problem (?). After day 1 in the bottle, no explosions....

Will do on the flow rate next time.... Cheers.

 

[LightLager]

Hi Raven,

After a quick review of responses thus far, (and not seeing any suggestion of racking to second fermenter), can I suggest racking your beers when bottling. Then you can get a thorough mix of priming sugar with your beer. Also clears things up a little bit leaving the yeast cake behind...

Racking seems like a risk to me. I like the idea of bulk priming, but opening the beer to the air. It it much of a risk?

I find this SO MUCH easier along with a bottling wand. No foaming issues in any of my brews.

Excuse my naivety, what is a "bottling wand"?

Cheers...

BTW: the Toohey's has come good. Slurp!

 

[LightLager]

If you bottle as soon as fermentation has finished, there is more dissolved carbon dioxide and more risk of foaming at bottling. Your beer will be much improved by leaving the beer in primary fermentaion for about 10-14 days at the correct fermentation temperature. Brewers that like to fiddle, will be racking and chilling at some stage too, but the keep it simple of 14 days in the fermenter does a top job for your beer.

I agree. "leaving the beer in primary fermentaion for about 10-14" is what I am attempting. I have found that 18C produces about 8 days of fermentation (left for 14 days even thought there was no change in SG). I tried 16C with this batch. Next time I will be back to 18C. I may be happier with that.

With only a few K&K under my belt, I am looking to produce drinkable beer. Experimentation is for the future...

Did I mention I like beer.... :chug: Adds a new dimension to "everyone loves their own brand"!

 

[buttersd70]

Racking seems like a risk to me. I like the idea of bulk priming, but opening the beer to the air. It it much of a risk?

cue Bribies pic of a Yorkshire square, stage left.........
Oh wait, this isn't a snagglepuss cartoon.......

link

opening the beer up to oxygen will lead to you shouting, " I roont the brew!!!"

 

[pint of lager]

Yes, it is a risk. Oxygen is the enemy of finished beer.

Yes, people have brewed in Yorkshire squares, unions etc. They used specific yeasts and probably had very specific brewing methodology. Admire the pictures of lightships. Cue right.

Newer brewers are best with beers under airlocks.

Look after your yeast, it looks after your beer.

A bottling wand is a bottle filler or blue bottler, or aussie bottler. It is a tube that fits into your tap and fills from the bottom when you put your empty 750ml long neck up to the tap. It has a valve on the end that is activated as your empty bottle presses on the base. It allows the bottle to be filled with the minimum of splashing, minimising oxygen entering your beer.

Yes, racking does have risks. You need to minimise oxygenating your transferring beer and also have a perfectly clean and sanitised racking vessel.

 

[wambesi]

After a quick review of responses thus far, (and not seeing any suggestion of racking to second fermenter), can I suggest racking your beers when bottling. Then you can get a thorough mix of priming sugar with your beer. Also clears things up a little bit leaving the yeast cake behind...

I find this SO MUCH easier along with a bottling wand. No foaming issues in any of my brews.

2c.

Hmmm, I do believe I mentioned bulk priming in my post above. Linky.
You are exactly right IMO, bulk priming (which involves "racking" or rather transferring the beer into another vessel with the sugar solution) and using the wand and tubing is much easier.

Mind you kegging will be easier too, hopefully I'll fill up my first in a week or two, but that's another kettle of fish.......

 

[desmogod]

After some advice from a friend who is a reputable home brewer, I was told not to waste my money and carbonate using ordinary household white sugar.

I dunno, it just seems wrong somehow.

 

[buttersd70]

agree with you, POL, that closed systems are preferred for newer brewers, and also that there is risk associated with oxygen contacting beer...I was just trying to make the point that, at times, the risks of things such as racking is a bit over stated and over analysed. Like you do with anything, due care should be taken, and if it is, the risks are minimised.

 

[pint of lager]

Desmogod, next time you prime, do it individually rather than bulk priming and do your own experiment.

Prime with dextrose, DME and sugar and mark the bottles. Do a taste test and preferrably a blind taste test with someone else doing the stewarding. There may be a slight difference in carbonation due to the different values of the products.

If you prime with something strongly flavoured like molasses or brown sugar, you will probably detect a change in flavour.

A standard kit recipe has 2.7 kg of ingredients. Priming represents about 120-150 gms on top of the original recipe, or about 4-5% of the base ingredients.

 

[Phoney]

On the oxygen front....

When I take hydrometer readings, the airlock sucks a few gulps of air back into the fermenter when I open up the tap. Will this suck in nasty bacteria & oxygen that could ruin my brew or am I being paranoid?

 

[lczaban]

On the oxygen front....

When I take hydrometer readings, the airlock sucks a few gulps of air back into the fermenter when I open up the tap. Will this suck in nasty bacteria & oxygen that could ruin my brew or am I being paranoid?

What you will find is that if it is only air that is being let back through the airlock, it is unlikely to affect your beer. During the fermentation process, the yeast emit carbon dioxide as by-product of their consumption of the fermentables in the wort. The CO2 is heavier than air,and acts as a sterile buffer from the oxygen that is present in the atmosphere. The thing you should be more worried about is having any of your liquid in the airlock being sucked into your beer and causing a potential infection point. A couple of things to do in this respect is to use a no-rinse sanitiser liquid mix in the airlock, so if any liquid is sucked in it won't contain nasties (infectious bacteria or adverse chemicals) that will ruin your beer. The other is to carefully loosen the lid on your fermenter (without taking it completely off) to allow some air in when you take your SG sample, and tighten it back up afterwards. It's not so much the small amount of fresh oxygen that will upset your beer, it is likely to be more your airbourne nasties being allowed direct access to your wort/beer that will cause problems.

If anyone else has anything to add or correct what I have put down here then please feel free to confirm or contradict what I have said here!

 

[buttersd70]

On the oxygen front....

When I take hydrometer readings, the airlock sucks a few gulps of air back into the fermenter when I open up the tap. Will this suck in nasty bacteria & oxygen that could ruin my brew or am I being paranoid?

Exactly as GG said. Avoid the water itself getting in, but don't worry about it sucking in air. (not to the degree it would in this example). Sensible practical precaution is all thats needed....food handlers wear latex gloves and hairnets, but feel no need for full NBC suits and resporators.

 

[wambesi]

Yeah when I check mine a few gulps of air come back but havn't had a problem with anything, as long as you don't have too much water in the airlock it should not come back through.

Just be careful though if you get those little damn flies stuck in there, then you would be better off taking the airlock out and replacing it with a new one.
A whole stack were trying to get into the airlock on my Belgian and drowned, little buggers.

 

[manticle]

Because no-one else has mentioned this I'm guessing it may be unorthodox and more experienced brewers may have decent reasons as to why it's bad.

However I have successfully brewed and bottled a number of different kk beers and my method for filling to the top without foam overflow is thus:

-Prime all but one bottle
-Fill the unprimed bottle and set aside.
-fill until the foam just reaches the top of the primed bottle. Fill at least half the intended bottles this way
-Starting from the first bottle and using a sterilised funnel, top up each bottle from the unprimed one. Cap, agitate and store.

I'm sure there may be some oxygenation issue potential but it seems to work for me.

I have had very few problems with overflow, no problems with infections and less than 5 bottle bombs in approximately 15 brews (and usually only on very high temperature days).

 

[mwd]

If you use a 'bottling wand' like the ones that come with Coopers Fermenters you do not get any foam in the bottles. :icon_offtopic:

 

[petesbrew]

Tuesday night: Just got home from the Hills brewers pizza night in time to witness a bottle bomb explosion.
KABOOMB SMASH
SWMBO yelled "What the F### was THAT??!"
Me, "I reckon a bottle bomb just went off".

Spent the next hour and another in the morning cleaning up shattered glass, mopping up beer, and tipping the remains of the last few beers out of the batch.
I was lucky. Only lost 2 Pilsners, an AG Belgian Pale Ale , and a stout from the next crate up.
I was very lucky. 3 days ago, those crates were in my dining room, with our newborn boy sleeping nearby.
With the amount of glass spread thru the garage... I'd hate to think what else would've happened.

 

[LightLager]

Tuesday night: Just got home from the Hills brewers pizza night in time to witness a bottle bomb explosion.
KABOOMB SMASH
SWMBO yelled "What the F### was THAT??!"

Same thing happened to me over the weekend. However it was not the brew that caused me to start this thread...

Thinking about it, I guess I was really asking for trouble. I brewed up some ginger beer based on a "old" recipe passed from generation to generation from the father-in-law... no OG, no FG, 1 week in the fermenter and straight into the bottle.

When I told my father-in-law that they exploded. He was adamant that it NEVER happened to him.

NO BEER FOR YOU!!!

 

[pokedad]

Quick question about exploding beer. I have been storing my beer in cardboard moving boxs and taping them closed. Will that prevent glass from going everywhere if they explode or am I underestimating the force of the explosion here ? The only exploding bottles I remember are my dad's 20 plus years ago, and then it didn't seem " that " bad, but they were in a cupboard.

I ask because I have 4 batches worth of bottles currently and it will soon be 8 batches in bottles, I want to be prepared..... Or at the very least send my mate's half off to his house to minimise the risk.

 

[boingk]

Nope. Imagine putting a firecracker into a glass bottle, then capping it and running like hell. Thats pretty much it.

The only way to make sure is FG & OG, accurate priming and cruisy fermentation (ie not rushed because you're going on holidays or something). To protect the case you suspect might be dodgy, wrap in an old blanket or two. Maybe put the lot, still in blankets, in a plastic storage bin.

- boingk