How To Check Pet Overcarbonated?

[Blitzer]

quick question, I have a brew that finished a couple of points above calculated FG so 1.015 instead of 1.013. I bottled and it has been conditioning for a week and a half. Tonight I got worried I might have made some PET rockets so I decided to open one to check pressure which gushed to the surface. So I decided to vent all bottles just in case, have I just lost all carbonation in my beer? I just cracked the lid to get the initial hiss then closed the lid.

How do people normally check carbonation/pressure on PET bottles? I have read too much on bottle bombs and freaked myself out I think.

Thanks

 

[mwd]

No you should be O.K. venting each bottle. You can tell if they are overcarbonated if the bottles are rock hard and begin to distort the bottoms bell out and the bottles fall over.

 

[Nick JD]

If you opened them warm they'll gush when perfectly carbonated.

Go to the supermarket and squeeze a Coke bottle - that's 4 volumes of CO2.

If you pick one up, and tap it, and it rings, it's over carbed. Until that - all good.

 

[Blitzer]

If you opened them warm they'll gush when perfectly carbonated.

Go to the supermarket and squeeze a Coke bottle - that's 4 volumes of CO2.

If you pick one up, and tap it, and it rings, it's over carbed. Until that - all good.

Oh well, I probably should have waited and cooled them down. No issue I may just have some under-carbonated beer.

 

[bum]

If you opened them warm they'll gush when perfectly carbonated.

:blink:

 

[Nick JD]

:blink:

Leave a PET bottle of beer that's got 2.5 volumes out of the fridge till it gets to 30C. Open it.

It'll lift the sediment and start foaming everywhere.

Try it.

 

[bum]

Since we're talking nonsense, see how much it gushes when you boil it!

30 isn't "warm", Nick. Nor is it something anyone should be allowing to happen to stored beer.

Six to nine months of the year my dark beers don't see the fridge. Never once have they gushed on opening (excluding an unfortunate infection).

 

[Nick JD]

Nor is it something anyone should be allowing to happen to stored beer.

Let's get a show of hands as to how many people who bottle have got their bottles at ambient temperature right now...

Take a quick video of yourself opening a 30C PET bottle carbed to 2.5 volumes. I wanna see it all remain in the bottle.

 

[warra48]

Let's get a show of hands as to how many people who bottle have got their bottles at ambient temperature right now...
.

I bottle all in glass, and it's all stored in my beer cellar in darkness at whetever the temperature is in there. The cellar runs off the back of the garage.
Never measured the temperature in there, but it always feels quite a bit cooler than the garage and the rest of the house.
Storing my beer in this fashion is no problem for me. Cracked a couple of 2 year old bottles last week, and they were in perfect condition. Probably helped they were Belgian Dark Strongs with about 9% ABV, but I regularly have normal batches at up to 12 months old without poblems.
Obviously, if you don't have a dark and cooler environment, then you may have problems with storage.

I also have a wine cellar off the back of the garage. I have 10 to 15 years old bottles in there and I never have ullage past the corks, so obviously the temperature in there is also relatively stable and cool.

 

[warra48]

Take a quick video of yourself opening a 30C PET bottle carbed to 2.5 volumes. I wanna see it all remain in the bottle.

No thanks, but I will willingly look at the video of the first few to try it...

 

[fletcher]

if taken out of context (and put in another) it's a pretty sexy statement there Nick

 

[JDW81]

Let's get a show of hands as to how many people who bottle have got their bottles at ambient temperature right now...

Unfortunately my bottles are stored at ambient (well a few degrees below in a dark, concrete corner in the garage) due to storage limitations etc. Believe me I'd change it if I could (can't quite justify a fridge big enough to hold them all at the moment).

They will, however spend a few days in the fridge before opening and still no gushers.

One bright side to the hot weather. It is saison season.