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Four bottle rocket after a year?

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T

thecaleb

NewBee
Registered Member
Jul 22, 2009
17
0
0
Kansas City, Missouri
I am absolutely perplexed about something. I made an acerglyn. Honestly I wasn't impressed with the flavor when it finished, it batch aged for almost a year in a one gallon carboy then I bottled it in hopes that aging it further might help. I had about four bottles worth all in my basement which stays around 50 to 55 degrees year round. They have been in the bottles for about six or seven months and I went into the basement after work to dig out some gardening tools to find that ALL four blew their corks today. I know it happened today because I was in the basement last night and it had not happened yet. So my question is why? Why after sitting a year in a carboy then sitting six months in bottles did they suddenly decide to blow their corks?
 
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It's certainly not unheard of. What was the FG of your mead? What yeast did you use?
 
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And all of them going together isn't unheard of either, especially if they were on a shelf such that one going might jiggle the others, I've had three corks blow in my basement so far and two were on the same day (by similar reasoning, my water heater wasn't sticky the day before I noticed two bottle mouths where corks should have been... and I think they'd been corked for at least 6 months.
 
Chevette Girl said:
And all of them going together isn't unheard of either,
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It was a whoa moment for me. I converted an old tool cabinet in the basement into a wine rack. The door was blown open and the shelf underneath it all sticky. It makes me feel better that others have had multiples go off. This was my fifth batch I believe. So still not a lot of experience under the belt.
 
All this bottlerocket talk makes me think I'd better check on Pumpkin Pie. I bottled here when there might have still been a bit of live yeast...
 
To give any idea of what happened a starting gravity and FG would be good (to know ABV and residual sugar) and also whether or not you stabilized (I'm guessing not?).
 
K5MOW said:
Has any one had this happen after stabilizing the mead be for bolting.

Roger
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My popped corks were all unstabilized, but I did have a report of a bottle I'd given as a gift go off in the refrigerator (although I don't know how, it was dry, had been carboy-aged for 4 years and I'd sulphited it just in case AND stirred multiple times to degas). As Medsen indicated, sometimes yeast have a mind of their own...
 
Do I need to stabilize all meads before bottling. I am brewing first batch now. It is a strawberry (since in season). I pitched yeast this morning and already have activity. I used 18lbs of honey in 5 gals as well as 18lbs of strawberries and used 71b. With a tolerance of 14% I figure mead will finish on sweeter side but pretty sure I have enough sugar in there to reach alcohol tolerance level.

So do I still need to stabilize somewhere in the future before bottling?
 
mklapheke said:
Do I need to stabilize all meads before bottling. I am brewing first batch now. It is a strawberry (since in season). I pitched yeast this morning and already have activity. I used 18lbs of honey in 5 gals as well as 18lbs of strawberries and used 71b. With a tolerance of 14% I figure mead will finish on sweeter side but pretty sure I have enough sugar in there to reach alcohol tolerance level.

So do I still need to stabilize somewhere in the future before bottling?
Click to expand...

Most people on the forums recommend for safety that you stabilize. The most common method seems to be using both sorbate and sulphite. A bottle rocket is the nice end, there's reports in the forums of full on shrapnel grenades.
 
If it's fermented completely dry (ie, below 1.000, still, degased, and not changing SG for a year), it should be safe enough to bottle.

I usually carboy-age my creations for more than a year, so often even if there's residual sugar, I can be reasonably assured that the fermentation is DONE. If there's any chance that it could wake up again, I sulphite and sorbate. Every now and then you get something weird, like my strawberry wine that was a relatively low ABV (9%), dry dry dry, and still continued to bubble in the carboy for over 4 years before I finally got tired of waiting and sulphited it. It also needed a lot of degasing.
 
You can "get away" with not stabilizing a mead with residual sugar, but really you're playing the odds game. Since the downside of a mead waking up is a glass grenade, I would strongly recommend stabilizing anything that finishes above about 0.990. Even then I'd probably dose it with a little sulfite to extend shelf life.
 
New question about stabilizing. How? I have campden and potassium sorbate. The bottles recommend 1 tablet per gallon and 1/4 tsp per gallon. Are these the right quantities or does it depend on what your recipe.

Recipe
18 lbs wildflower honey
18 lbs of strawberrries
water to 3 gals to start (will add more later, was forewarned about leaving room in primary)
71B
energizer and nutrient
 
What was your SG reading after adding the water? That might be a lot too much headspace, not because headspace isn't good, but because with that much honey in such a small total volume you've created a very stressful environment for your yeast most likely!

Also, this should really be in it's own thread for your specific recipe. But just leave it for now I think, a mod may move it if they feel necessary.
 
I havent added the water yet. I pulled the first of the strawberries out today, and had a SG of .995. I broke my strawberries out into 2 batches a 10lb batch for adding to the primary andd 8 lbs more for adding to the secondary. I was going to rack in the morning onto the second batch of strawberries and see how much head space I had and add a little water. I have 2 primary buckets so my racking tomorrow was just from one bucket to another and in another week or so move it into a carboy and let it age.

With the second batch of strawberries I knew I was possible adding more yeast with the wilds possibly be present so I was going to stabilize and backsweeten before moving to secondary.

Also I froze all strawberries for a week at -10 F before adding to adding to must. With primary strawberries I mixed warm water 125 f, honey, strawberries and 3 campden for 24 hours prior to pitching yeast
 
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I meant after adding water to 3 gallons, seems like the SG would have been very high, unless the strawberries diluted it down enough.
 
Sorry just realized what you were asking my SG was 1.250 with 3 gals and as strawberries aged I slowly added water during fermentation when I had room in bucket to keep head space down. Didnt take readings as dillegently as I should have but after 48 hours after pitching and an additional gallon of water I had 1.085.

Current total is 4 gals
 
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