DO NOT BOTTLE... exploding bottles
Good advice for the unwary/inexperienced, but I would say:
Use of the correct bottle for the job - not a strong screwed cap, is the best safety practice.
Once had to carefully (covered in heavy cloth) remove screw caps from fermenting wine in lemonade glass bottles (thirty or more years ago) after two had already exploded in the cupboard! Not of my doing, in the first place, I might add.
Bottles with a dimple in the base and corked properly, while still spoiling, should be safe.
Simple risk assessment here, I think.
Regards, RAB
I made mead many, many years ago. Probably when I was about 15/16, as I had been brewing for a while then. I found it rather insipid, but was sure that was more my fault than the fault of the recipe. As I was very successful at producing blackberry wine that tasted like a Barolo or good chianti (without the tannin, of course), I didn't pursue it.
The point about glass bottles is well made. I also used to make ginger beer (especially after Stonehenge stopped making their –*anyone remember it?) Using the wrong bottle can be foolhardy (you lose your ale) but also dangerous.
One Saturday morning, I heard two loud bangs in the cellar like a gun going off. Went down to discover my ginger beer had tried to make an run for it.
I carefully wrapped my other bottles in towels and took them down the garden to about 20' from the back door and went back for more. Just as I set the last One down and went back chase the dog away from the excitement, one, a 1L French beer bottle gave up the ghost, and went up like a Roman candle. The top of the bottle had been forced off from the taper and sent about 20' into the air. Having experienced the force of a pub tonic water bottle that smashed and propelled itself at my boat race, I dread to think how bad an injury that projectile could have caused. I resolved to smash the others and despatched them from a safe distance with a couple of half bricks – a controlled explosion. It was a sobering experience.
Thos bottles which failed were REUSED ones, so already considerably stressed, but also not up to secondary fermentation – they were too thin. A couple of the others were from Fischer (remember that?) which was in a Grolsch-like bottle, but which was far lighter weight and therefore equally unsuitable.
Proof, were it needed, that you always use the best tool for the job and a reason why champagne bottles are not reused, because they have already experienced considerable stress during their life.
