My friend asked me if I would make him a batch of beer. I told him I would gladly make it for him. He wanted a Timothy Taylor Landlord clone. I told him to just bring over enough bottles for 5 gallons. After making the beer I fermented and the cold crashed for a week. The beer turned out to be better than my expectations. Great color, clarity and 5.0 % ABV. I told him we would bottle on 8/23. Well he came over and I had already racked the beer into a bottling bucket and was ready to go. He then pulled out 2 case of mason jars from his trunk. It really startled me. I told him that though I wasn’t 100% sure, the mason jars were not design to hold pressure like that. I offered him brand new 1 L swing tops to use and he could replace them later. He really insisted that it was going to be ok. I put the lids on as tight as I could and carbed at 2.3 vol. I just know something is going to happen and this is my best friend. Should I have just told him that I would not do it unless proper bottling vessels were used? I have attached a pic.
remember Piels chugga mug bottles? Hope it works
When I was hot water bath canning pickles last year, I finger tightened the rings on a few jars a little to tight. The bottoms of a few jars blew out in the water bath. Mason jars are designed to hold a vacuum, not pressure. These jars of beers should be kept in a strong plastic tote.
What flars said… this is going to be a disaster. Those jars are very likely to explode.
If true it’s a terrible waste of beer. Hope your not liable for damages.
There’s a guy on another forum that had one of his washed yeast jars explode because it built up too much pressure. It’ll happen even at refrigerator temps, although slowly. It embedded shards of glass into the door of the refrigerator.
Seriously, you guys need to get that beer out of the jars ASAP. There’s probably a lot of pressure in there already, so do be careful. Someone can get seriously hurt doing this.
[quote=“porkchop”]There’s a guy on another forum that had one of his washed yeast jars explode because it built up too much pressure. It’ll happen even at refrigerator temps, although slowly. It embedded shards of glass into the door of the refrigerator.
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Seriously, you guys need to get that beer out of the jars ASAP[/size]. There’s probably a lot of pressure in there already, so do be careful. Someone can get seriously hurt doing this.[/quote]
[size=150]^^^^THIS^^^^[/size]
Keep in mind, glass doesn’t show up in x-rays. They’ll have to dig it out the old fashioned way.
I think three days in the jars won’t have built up too much pressure, but what everyone else said about getting out of those jars ASAP.
Well, you did try to tell the guy.
It will be a lesson learned for sure. The hard way, and probably while at the hospital…
Bottle bombs are seriously dangerous! Drape the jars with a heavy blanket, reach under the blanket and grip one jar at a time inside a double-thickness towel. Keeping the jar wrapped in the doubled towel, open the jar and pour it into a into a bottling bucket (or down the drain). You may be able to re-bottle it or keg it.
DO NOT try to chill them to reduce the pressure; that will stress the jars and increase the likelihood they will fail.
None of the above is theoretical. Been there, got the sutures!
UPDATE:
My friend is a little embarrassed which makes me embarrassed.Hell, I offered to give him the bottles but he wouldn’t go for it. For some reason he still wants to see what happens. I went over there and put them in a utility tub he has. I kept one to analyze. I draped a beach towel over my bucket but I saw he had a piece of plywood and I placed it over his jars. As of this posting it has been 4 days and 3 hours. I have attached a pic just taken of the one I kept.
After a week start drinking them. It will be awhile before they blow. Definitely don’t let them age. Party time.
The key factor here is that they were designed to withstand negative pressure, not positive. Don’t let him feel too bad, I’m sure everyone had that idea at one point. I certainly did.
