Exploding Bottles?!?

[Trout]

My mate and I have been brewing 'homies' for the past year and with great success. So much so Saturday afternoons are spent with a number of families from the street sitting around our garage bar drinking homebrew whilst the kids run around the backyard.
Just lately (past three months) we have had a little trouble with a few exploding bottles. These bottles have been sitting on open selves in the bar whilst going through their secondary process.
We are at a loss as to the reason we have this problem all of a sudden. Cleaning up the mess is a real pain, not to mention the safety issue should one decide to 'pop' whilst we are all sitting at the bar.
Is it a rise in temperature? Have we miscalculated and bottled too early?
Does anyone have any suggestions / ideas?

[Evo]

Yeah. Kegs. I've never had one explode.

Seriously though, you've got the bar, it's the next logical step. Bit of an initial cost, but pays for itself in no time.

PS I'm sure someone else will have a more direct answer to your question.

[Dogger Dan]

Evo,

My kegs are only rated to 85 psi

To answer the question I think it can be one of about three things.

1. To much priming sugar. Try cutting it back or do the 200 g per 23 L thing

2. Crappy bottles, been used to many times and they are failing (new bottles)

3. Fermentation incomplete prior to bottling or you have a secondary infection (clean things up, I just got overone so they come into everyones life)

Dogger

[Trout]

Thanks for your help - had another two go off this morning. Frightened the you know what out of the wife as she was in the shed at the time of the explosion.
After reading through some of the stuff on Oliver and Geoff's site I am thinking we have bottled too early. In fact I think we have bottled all our stock too early. We have had no problems with 95% of the stock, mainly just this last batch.

We are interested in a Keg approach. Will have to investigate. What sort of money are we looking at?
Anyone have any point of contact for value-for-money keg systems?

[Dogger Dan]

Trout,

Something I forgot.

Very carefully, in blast suits if needs be, crack the caps off the bottles before you make a real grenade that will kill someone. Once you have that done take the beer and let it finish in a fermentor then re bottle.

Thats what I like about this sport, you can always salvage if you try hard enough

Just to let you know, this guy came into the shop once and asked me to test his batch. Said he forgot to add the kilo of sugar during the make so he added the kilo along with the 200 grams of priming sugar. Apparently he couldn't figure out why things were blowing up and the beer was cloudy.

Dogger

[Trout]

Thanks Dogger

I have had to relocate the exploding brew - it was prooving much too serious a health hazard. Donned beanie, glasses, long sleeve shirt, long pants and gloves to do so. Almost all the bottles of the brew have since exploded (that's just today). Thankfully I had them already shifted into a blast proof environment.

We will write that brew off and start again.

(Can hear another one going off just now!!)
It has all been a bit of entertainment anyway.

[Solar]

AAAARRRGH....All that beer lost!!

Hope you managed to salvage a few bottles to drink while the rest were exploding

[Evo]

It does have a certain "russian roulette" charm about it though. It would keep the adrenalin going during a drinking sesh. I think you could have some real fun with it.

[Oliver]

Trout,

Given your bottles are blowing up so consistently, I'd put money on the fact that, as you believe, you bottled too early

Patience is a virtue

Cheers,

Oliver

[Andy]

Trout

Kegs are a good idea, they are easier to clean and some come with a safety valve, which is handy if you do keg early or over prime. You can also draw off as much or as little as you like at a time. It's the way to go.