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Danger Will Robinson Danger!
So, I made a batch of mead in a 1 gal glass jug and it turned out quite nice, although I thought that it finished a little too sweet. Anyway, the mead was practically gone (maybe 12-24 oz left in the bottle) and there were a lot of yeasties left at the bottom. I had been keeping the mead in my refrigerator and took it out when I converted the fridge into a temp controlled fermenting chamber. I left the bottle sitting on the floor of my basement and forgot all about it. Yesterday, I walked downstairs and saw glass on the floor and saw that my mead bottle had broken. I was confused at first and realized when I saw that there were little glass shards scattered all over my basement that the bottle had exploded. I guess that there was enough residual sugar left in the mead for the remaining yeast to ferment and enough create CO2 to turn my bottle into a lethal weapon. Check out the carnage below:
This is what I first saw when I walked in the basement:
Then I noticed that there was glass shrapnel sticking out of the wooden support beam:
Then I noticed that one of my wifes plastic storage boxes had taken the brunt of the impact and had been shattered by the impact:
There was a package of paper towels that was shredded, but I didn't take a picture of this. I was a partial skeptic as to what the actual power of a bottle bomb was, but now I will make sure to place all bottles, beer or mead, in an explosion proof cabinet or something. This was absolutely amazing! There was glass and still is glass in every corner of the basement including behind the fridge and washing machine. At least the cat wasn't down there when it went off...
I consider myself lucky that I haven't had any bottle grenades, but I have had a crack develop and beer started leaking out steadily. When I checked my refrigerator that I kept the bottles in, There was beer all over the bottom of the frig and the bottle was half empty. The box that I kept the 12 pack in was covered in mold and utterly wreaked. I am so happy I haven't had a bottle bomb (knock on wood.) I do not wish to clean up all that glass or worse get sliced diced or minced. Even worse I would lose so much beer.
Wow....I think I'm going to cover up my bottled beers right now...that's pretty incredible.
The 2 bombs I have had were luckily pretty clean breaks, blew the bottom out of a growler, and had a grolsch bottle split in half lengthwise, that was pretty cool. What wasnt cool was 1/2 gallon of beer soaked into my carpet in the game room. I was home for the growler and it was actually pretty loud, not like a bang but a dull loud poof, it was my first batch so after the crying subsided I put the rest of the growlers into a big cooler for a just in case. That shrapnel was pretty impressive though 1n, another great reason to store your gold away from everything else.
I've had one set of bottle grenades go off last summer but I was fortunate to have them in my chest freezer conditioning. Had about thirty go off while I was away. I second the use of a container.
Wild
Amazing pics, thanks for the info.
Many years ago I had a gallon plastic screw top plastic jug half full of cider go off about ten foot away from me. No schrapnal with plastic, but the POP almost scared the piss out of me. My daughter was sitting two foot away, needless to say scare the crap outs her as well. The mess was... Well, a mess. After the initial scare we laughed, but looking back on it I hate to think what would have happened if it had been glass. Thanks for the picks and the safety reminder.
Holy Honey Handgrenade, Batman!
Thanks for the pics. I just recently have lost 2 bottles, out of a batch, (actually I think the whole batch is infected, taste is off). Nothing like your pics though. My wife heard one of the bottles, she said it sounded like a loud dull pop, and thought nothing of it. That one split the bottle at the seam, and the other one just popped it in half.
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