Lager Related Story and Question

[Bgon]

I recently had finished my first homebrew. Took all the precautions I could read about. Let the Fosters Clone sit in primary for a week and a half, secondary for two weeks. For cooling I use large cooler standing on its side and pack with reusable Ice Packs I made. (water inserted into FoodSaver bags and sealed. Frozen laying flat and it slid in perfectly between carboy and side of cooler) I then got a call that had to go out of town for a week. So I was left with the choice of bottling or trying to get it into a refridgerator for the week. The fridge has not been temperature adjusted yet and I was worried it would freeze up. So I tested with hydrometer for a few days and it remained constant (not sure the FG, cannot find my documents). After the week of being bottled, it had little carbonation, so I took it out of fridge and let sit at 70 degrees. Second week I opened and it was a gusher. I tried several bottles and they were all that way. Seems it did not finish fermenting maybe. Any way, a few hours after I tested 4-5 bottles I heard massive explosions. Walked into the room to see fooam everywhere and glass bottle bits everywhere.

Was it all fermentation issues or the Midwest instructions and recipe that far off with the priming sugars? It was a great batch until the explosions.
I get bottling was probably early, but I had always assumed tops would pop first, not the explosions I had.

 

[Ultrazord]

Caps fit very very well. Sounds like you simply bottled before fermentation was complete. There is an off chance that you had defective bottles. How many bombs have you experienced?

 

[Bgon]

I had them all in cardboard cases and when they started popping I picked the cases up and put them in a plastic tote. No clue how many popped. Paranoid about using any right now especially since they were gushers.

 

[Ultrazord]

Gushers + bombs sounds like you definitely bottled early. Did you achieve a stable final gravity?

You may want to crack the tops to release some pressure and/or re-cap.

 

[Bgon]

Might toss these out since I just moved them to another room carefully and heard another pop. Not really in the mood for one to pop with my kids around or while I'm trying to release pressure.

Midwest's timetable was off and so was the "How to brew" book. Or I just was misunderstanding things some. I have an ale going that's on week two and is drawing near FG. Is there a drawback to letting it sit to long before bottling?

 

[boo boo]

All instructions are simple suggestions. You really have to let the beer finish on its own timetable. Never cap a beer that hasn't finished fermenting.

 

[Bgon]

Ya. Lessoned learned on that one. Time tables are not meant for official use. Gravity readings from hydrometer from now on.

 

[Ultrazord]

crack the top on all to release pressure. The only real way to tell fermentation is complete is via hydrometer. Kit instructions are made to get people through them fast and assume ideal results.

I take it you didn't take hydrometer readings even once to test FG?

As for letting your ale sit, give it a month. That's typically enough for most.

 

[Bgon]

I took hydrometer readings and they were stable. Obviously they were high readings now. Call it beginners ignorance I guess. Looking back I should have placed it all in fridge and hoped for the best instead of bottling.