oops…

Brewing Processes
1

Alright, so I fat-fingered the desired volumes of CO2 entry on a bottle carbonation calculator…and my hefeweizen is primed to 4 vols.

Is this in bottle bomb territory? Bottles were a mix of regular 12 oz brown ones, 12 oz Paulaner hefeweizen bottles (not sure if they’re any different than “regular” bottles) and some half-liter German hefeweizen bottles. (The tall tapered sort.)

If the answer is yes, I’ll likely just crack the caps in a few days and recap. If they aren’t likely to explode I’ll probably just leave them and chill them really well before consuming.

2

The 500ml bottles will be fine. I wouldn’t think twice about those. The 375ml bottles are probably fine too but I would be most concerned about the standard 12oz bottles. They probably won’t explode but I would store them somewhere that won’t have large temperature swings and if an explosion occurs will not likely harm a person or pet.

3

The range I looked up for a Hefe is 3.6 to 4.5 volumes. As said above, be careful with the 12 oz. bottles, the others are good for that.

4

When I have been worried about bottle bombs I have stored them in a box in the cellar wrapped in a towel.

5

Almost forgot, some of the bottles are also old 16 oz Natty Boh bombers…old as in early/mid nineties.

6

A regular 12oz brown bottle holds 4+ volumes just fine. The imports are probably quite a bit stronger.

If they are gushers you can chill them and pry one prong of the cap up to let just a little gas to slowly escape in the fridge over the course of a few days or until you are happy. Then tighten the cap back up with the capper

7

Yea this sounds more like gusher territory than bottle bombs. Try to not jostle them around, getting sediment in suspension creates more nucleation points for carbonation.

8

Gushers I can handle lol, just don’t want exploding glass to contend with.

9

I don’t have any scientific facts to back this up but some un-scientific anecdotal evidence. To me it makes sense that the bottles are engineered to tolerances that would involve failure far above 4 volumes. I’ve taken them there…

Damage- scratches etc in the glass might be a problem.

Best to drink them up quickly and put this mess behind you. It’s how we learn. ::slight_smile:

10

Hefeweizen never lasts long in my house…split this batch 50/50 with a friend, so 2.5 gallons won’t take long to drink at all.

11

I think the generally accepted rule of thumb is that regular 12-oz bottles are fine up to at least 3 volumes. If they’re decent quality I think most of them should handle 4 volumes without blowing up. But if one bottle goes, then you could have a nasty chain reaction. Frankly, that batch would scare the hell out of me.