Belgian bottle bombs

[HighHops]

I've just had my first bottle bomb which is scary. It was from a batch of Grand Cru (ABV 7%) that was bottled about three weeks ago. Came home to find glass stuck in the cupboard door and about 20 sticky bottles. Moved the rest very carefully to somewhere a bit cooler (the cupboard was about 20C). The thing is Brewferm recommend 90g of sugar for 9 Litres, which seems like a lot but belgian beer needs quite a long secondary and you want a big frothy head, so I followed the recipe. I primed in the FV, gave it a stir and left it for half an hour before bottling, so they should all be the same. Is this a one off or am I going to blow the gable end off the house? Should I have used stronger bottles for belgian beer? I just used normal brown bottles.

[mysterio]

Hope you wore goggles and gloves moving those bottles!

Yes, I would use stronger bottles when carbonating to that level. The amount of sugar isn't excessive but it will definately give you a lively beer, something like Duvel. Generally, you should use beers that have been used for bottle conditioning, like the Duvel bottle in your avatar. Or even Champagne bottles.

[potatoes]

Out of curiosity, did you have any more explode so far? 90grams doesnt seem excessive priming, so I was a tad surprised you had a bomb with that. Did you take a grav reading before removing it from the FV?

[floydmeddler]

Out of curiosity, did you have any more explode so far? 90grams doesnt seem excessive priming, so I was a tad surprised you had a bomb with that. Did you take a grav reading before removing it from the FV?

That's what I'm thinking. If the brew wasn't finished fermenting and you bottled then they'll all be the same. However, you could be lucky in that that one may have been a single infected bottle; it may have been a gushing infection.

Hope it works out. Exploding bottles are SCARY.

[mickhew]

90 g for 9 litres isn't excessive. I'm sitting here thinking what others are. Did you have a constant hydro reading over 24 hours? I never bottle/barrel until I have that reading. Cheers.

[Manx Guy]

Hi!

Another thought on this matter...
Assuming you had the constant Hydro readings indicating that the fermentation had finished then it looks like if you added the sugar to the FV you did the Primary in then maybe there was 'too much' yeast put into some of the bottles at the bottling stage...

Correct me if I misunderstood your initial post...

This together with the fairly high priming levels mean that the pressure inside the bottles probably increased faster than it could cope with...

I use Grolcsh swing tops for some of my bottled brews and they are even able to stand being dropped whilst being bulk primed with 200g (in 20l batch) sugar! ooops!
I expectaed to be showered in cold foamy beer but the bottle remained intact and the cap stayed on.. I moved it back to the fridges for 48 hours to calm down.. then it was fine when opened!

I hope that the exploding bottle was an isolated incident.. its happened to my on a sample bottle i did using a plastic 500ml bottle (to check carbonation curing the secondary)

Hope this helps....

Slainte!

[floydmeddler]

I've been using 55g per 23L in my ales these days. Perfect. HATE fizzy beers unless it is of course a Belgian. Would only go for 80g even then.

[potatoes]

I've been using 55g per 23L in my ales these days. Perfect. HATE fizzy beers unless it is of course a Belgian. Would only go for 80g even then.

55 grams per 23L seems small. but if it works for you then it works. i have got a cider almost ready to bottle at the mo. How much do you recommend as priming? I was going with 4 grams of table sugar per Litre.

[HighHops]

The primary stopped at 1016 on day 6 so roused the yeast and left for another 5 days but hydro reading still 1016 so it had definately stopped. No more bombs, so as you say, it must have been an infection or maybe excessive yeast. May have been the last one out of the FV.
This has been bottled for four weeks now. Had a tester bottle last night and it tastes great. Nice head and fizz.

Cheers!