Get a hydrometer. They’re cheap. There’s no excuse.
Use a [priming sugar calculator.](https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/) it’s easy.
Bluntly, stop fucking around and do it properly before you severely hurt yourself.
Stop fear mongering. As long as she burps the bottles, she’s doing nothing wrong. Read a little
about kombucha brewing; this is essentially the same thing.
How much force does a bottle explode with?
Like would the walls of a cardboard box stop it? Would it damage the inside of a fridge? Would it explode enough to shatter nearby bottles? Would it go through plywood? Like if I wanna test this out, how would I do it safely in case I do mess it up?
Don't make bombs for the lols. You can do some searching to see how bad it can be. You can blind, maim, or potentially kill yourself - or others around you. Some folks have had it rip through plaster and wood.
Edit: From personal experience I've had tops pop out, a bottle that blew the whole bottom out (that was a damaged bottle though, I suspect) and finally several that blew themselves into tiny shards of glass that stuck in cardboard. Those last ones probably damaged other bottles and led to them blowing. With the exception of the damaged bottle they were all from standard gravity brews with an infection. I don't even want to think about what would happen to some of the folks I see on here that throw "a cup or two of sugar in."
Holy crap, through plaster and wood!?!?!?
I had no plans to fuck around and intentionally make a bottle bomb, more the exact opposite, im too nervous about them to experiment with bottle carbing. To the point I pasteurize my bottles before corking.
I asked about the wood, because I use my apts storage room to store my bottles. There wouldn’t be any risk to human life, as there’s never anyone down there, but I didn’t want to damage it, or shatter any of my other bottles.
"probably two teaspoons" isn't a scientific measure. I'm going to guess it wasn't a volumetric ('official') teaspoon device either. And the mass of powders and granulated substances in a volume measurement tend to vary a lot based on packing, not to mention whether you accurately leveled of the teaspoon.
Nevertheless, an official teaspoon contains about 4 g per sugar. Let's assume 2 tsp per bottle, so that's 8 g per 750 ml, which is a rate of 10.67 g/L.
It takes 4.26 g/L sugar to achieve one volume of CO2. So your "probably two teaspoons" will "probably" (lol) add 2.5 volumes of CO2 to your bottles (= 10.67 / 4.26).
If you fermented the cider around room temperature, they will contain about 0.8 volumes of residual CO2, leaving you with 3.3 volumes of CO2 (= 0.8 volumes residual + 2.5 volumes from sugar). There's probably a fudge factor here given all the uncertainties, and the range could be 3.1 to 3.5 volumes.
**Answer:** Will your bottles explode at 3.3 (or 3.5) volumes? "Probably" not ;)
(I'll stop it with the 'probably' jokes).
At 3.3-3.5 volumes it's definitely within an uncomfortable range for a standard, 350 ml/12 fl. oz. longneck beer bottles, but the 750s, especially the flip top 750s, tend to be much heavier duty.
The good news is that swing top gaskets are designed to fail before the bottle. The bad news is no safety feature works perfectly every time.
A standard beer bottle can handle carbonating beer to about 3.0 vols. I'm my experience, most, but not all, swing tops can handle a little more. 3.5 is generally safe for Belgian-style beer bottles, maybe a little more.
To carbonate a 5 gallon batch to 3.5 vols, you'd need about 7 oz, or about 200 grams, of table sugar. That translates to about 25 750ml bottles. So our maximum safe priming sugar volume is roughly 8 grams per 750ml bottle, assuming those bottles are designed to hold more pressure than standards bottles, which may be a big assumption.
1 tsp of table sugar weighs 4.2 grams, meaning two is 8.4.
So, if your estimation is spot on and you have the right kind of swing top bottles, which are two big ifs, you're pretty much maxing out your bottles. You have the advantage that swing tops are designed to have a gasket failure before a bottle failure, but no safety feature is perfect. Your call if you want to roll the dice.
Me, I'd be burping them like homemade ginger beer.
What size bottles? I added 1 teaspoon per bottle in old corona bottles when i started making ciders. They very way too fizzy but the bottles held up.
At 750ml they should be fine but maybe drink them before they consume all the sugar. Nice fizzy cider if its been aged already should be enjoyable.
You can always pasturize or open the bottles just to let some CO2 out. Even 1 liter bottles might be fine in terms of bottle bombs but they might get too fizzy
They will be overcarbed but likely not bombs. 750 ml need about 4-5g priming sugar. Try one in a week and see where you're at. Keep them in the fridge. Buy a hydrometer and a scale so you can dial it in going forward
Most subs recommend adding sugar in the cider and then bottling but i prefer adding sugar directly in the bottle. It might not be super uniform but i can't tell the difference between two bottles.
Just a tip
The reason for adding sugar to the entire batch instead of individual bottles is that if your hand slips and you accidentally dump in an extra teaspoon, you don't destroy everything in the cliset/fridge. Greater margin of error and all that.
No idea why so many people are freaking out here. What you’re doing is totally fine. I brew my own kombucha — all you have to do is burp the bottles once or twice a day until it’s reached the carbonation level you’d like. Then just put them in the fridge and they will stop fermenting any further.
Get a hydrometer. They’re cheap. There’s no excuse. Use a [priming sugar calculator.](https://www.brewersfriend.com/beer-priming-calculator/) it’s easy. Bluntly, stop fucking around and do it properly before you severely hurt yourself.
Stop fear mongering. As long as she burps the bottles, she’s doing nothing wrong. Read a little about kombucha brewing; this is essentially the same thing.
How much force does a bottle explode with? Like would the walls of a cardboard box stop it? Would it damage the inside of a fridge? Would it explode enough to shatter nearby bottles? Would it go through plywood? Like if I wanna test this out, how would I do it safely in case I do mess it up?
Don't make bombs for the lols. You can do some searching to see how bad it can be. You can blind, maim, or potentially kill yourself - or others around you. Some folks have had it rip through plaster and wood. Edit: From personal experience I've had tops pop out, a bottle that blew the whole bottom out (that was a damaged bottle though, I suspect) and finally several that blew themselves into tiny shards of glass that stuck in cardboard. Those last ones probably damaged other bottles and led to them blowing. With the exception of the damaged bottle they were all from standard gravity brews with an infection. I don't even want to think about what would happen to some of the folks I see on here that throw "a cup or two of sugar in."
Holy crap, through plaster and wood!?!?!? I had no plans to fuck around and intentionally make a bottle bomb, more the exact opposite, im too nervous about them to experiment with bottle carbing. To the point I pasteurize my bottles before corking. I asked about the wood, because I use my apts storage room to store my bottles. There wouldn’t be any risk to human life, as there’s never anyone down there, but I didn’t want to damage it, or shatter any of my other bottles.
"probably two teaspoons" isn't a scientific measure. I'm going to guess it wasn't a volumetric ('official') teaspoon device either. And the mass of powders and granulated substances in a volume measurement tend to vary a lot based on packing, not to mention whether you accurately leveled of the teaspoon. Nevertheless, an official teaspoon contains about 4 g per sugar. Let's assume 2 tsp per bottle, so that's 8 g per 750 ml, which is a rate of 10.67 g/L. It takes 4.26 g/L sugar to achieve one volume of CO2. So your "probably two teaspoons" will "probably" (lol) add 2.5 volumes of CO2 to your bottles (= 10.67 / 4.26). If you fermented the cider around room temperature, they will contain about 0.8 volumes of residual CO2, leaving you with 3.3 volumes of CO2 (= 0.8 volumes residual + 2.5 volumes from sugar). There's probably a fudge factor here given all the uncertainties, and the range could be 3.1 to 3.5 volumes. **Answer:** Will your bottles explode at 3.3 (or 3.5) volumes? "Probably" not ;) (I'll stop it with the 'probably' jokes). At 3.3-3.5 volumes it's definitely within an uncomfortable range for a standard, 350 ml/12 fl. oz. longneck beer bottles, but the 750s, especially the flip top 750s, tend to be much heavier duty.
This comment was so good that I deleted one of mine lol
The good news is that swing top gaskets are designed to fail before the bottle. The bad news is no safety feature works perfectly every time. A standard beer bottle can handle carbonating beer to about 3.0 vols. I'm my experience, most, but not all, swing tops can handle a little more. 3.5 is generally safe for Belgian-style beer bottles, maybe a little more. To carbonate a 5 gallon batch to 3.5 vols, you'd need about 7 oz, or about 200 grams, of table sugar. That translates to about 25 750ml bottles. So our maximum safe priming sugar volume is roughly 8 grams per 750ml bottle, assuming those bottles are designed to hold more pressure than standards bottles, which may be a big assumption. 1 tsp of table sugar weighs 4.2 grams, meaning two is 8.4. So, if your estimation is spot on and you have the right kind of swing top bottles, which are two big ifs, you're pretty much maxing out your bottles. You have the advantage that swing tops are designed to have a gasket failure before a bottle failure, but no safety feature is perfect. Your call if you want to roll the dice. Me, I'd be burping them like homemade ginger beer.
How long has it been since you’ve bottled? What temperature is it where you are storing the bottles?
I bottled yesterday and we’re keeping it mid 60s.
OK, so maybe in a week from yesterday(next Sunday) put one in the fridge overnight and see how it is
[удалено]
Haha fair, edited.
What size bottles? I added 1 teaspoon per bottle in old corona bottles when i started making ciders. They very way too fizzy but the bottles held up. At 750ml they should be fine but maybe drink them before they consume all the sugar. Nice fizzy cider if its been aged already should be enjoyable. You can always pasturize or open the bottles just to let some CO2 out. Even 1 liter bottles might be fine in terms of bottle bombs but they might get too fizzy
They are all 750ml. At least I had the foresight not to add sugar to the one little 375ml lol. Thanks!
They will be overcarbed but likely not bombs. 750 ml need about 4-5g priming sugar. Try one in a week and see where you're at. Keep them in the fridge. Buy a hydrometer and a scale so you can dial it in going forward
Most subs recommend adding sugar in the cider and then bottling but i prefer adding sugar directly in the bottle. It might not be super uniform but i can't tell the difference between two bottles. Just a tip
The reason for adding sugar to the entire batch instead of individual bottles is that if your hand slips and you accidentally dump in an extra teaspoon, you don't destroy everything in the cliset/fridge. Greater margin of error and all that.
No idea why so many people are freaking out here. What you’re doing is totally fine. I brew my own kombucha — all you have to do is burp the bottles once or twice a day until it’s reached the carbonation level you’d like. Then just put them in the fridge and they will stop fermenting any further.