Exploding Bottles (welcome back from vacaction!)

[Elmer]

went to Hershey PA for a few days. Upon my return I headed down to the cellar to grab a bottle only to find that 3 out of my 5 blueberry Poms has shattered.
I know up here in the Northeast we had some hot weather, high 90's in PA and atleast 95 at home in NY. My neighbor who was house watching to me we had a very intense thunderstorm for about 10 minutes after a 97 degree day.
3 out of 5 bottles burst, but why didnt the other 2?
Now I know it is not far enough of a fall for them to have fell and broke (and this would not have caused glass inside crate).

I did use synthetic corks and wraped the tops in the shrink wrap. I know people have spoken of having corks pop out, which I have never had happen. Could I not have properly degassed and since the corks could not pop, just blew the bottle apart?

Could it have been heat?
Change In pressure?
Storm?
Not proper degassing?

And how would anyone approach cleaning the shards of glass on the remaining bottles? Would you still drink then after clearing glass off them?

 

[Bartman]

Fascinating - it's just like CSI! Where is the wine that spilled? The wood crate and floor look pretty clean - why is not a sticky and stained-floor mess? Perhaps your neighbor got into your stash, drank the wine and then broke bottles deliberately to make it look like an accident!

Assuming no criminal activity involved, I would suspect sudden pressure and temperature changes, coupled with some fermentation in the bottle (did you back-sweeten? how about adding sufficient sulfite and sorbate before bottling?), led to the explosions. Properly corked and sealed with foil, the corks may have simply been too tight to be pushed out, before the glass broke. I'll bet you used #9 corks rather than #8, right? (#9s are slightly larger than #8s)

 

[JohnT]

I agree with bartman.

Most synthetic corks are rather tight. This means that a lot more pressure will build in the bottle before it pops out. The heat could have definitely kicked off a fermentation. Was the wine dry?

Why the 2 and not all?

My guess is this... You have the wine on a concrete floor that was (I assume) cool. this means the the bottom bottle were kept cooler than the top ones and, therefore, did not build up as much pressure. (this is just a guess).

 

[Runningwolf]

...and back to Barts question, why no mess?

 

[jamesngalveston]

I would say you have a problem with your house sitter, not your wine.
Come on man.....that wood looks like it has not been sealed...wine would be all over it, and deep in to the wood...even if it was sealed, there would be wine everywhere....
some body had a party.

 

[jamesngalveston]

and by the way, if that much pressure was build up in the bottle the corks would blow first....weakest part the bottle wine, is the cork.
and none of the necks are broke....
test the theory: fill some wine bottles with water, and cork.
hold the bottle with a gloved hand, and hit the bottle with a hammer..
you will see the same kind of break...

 

[Julie]

Well I am in agreement with others, there should have been a mess and the cork would have blown first. I don't think the shrink wrap is that tough to hold the cork in.

 

[jamesngalveston]

as for the rest of the bottles...rinse them in the sink with water, and drink the heck out of them before your house sitters comes back.

 

[Bartman]

as for the rest of the bottles...rinse them in the sink with water, and drink the heck out of them before your house sitters comes back.

Oh, yeah, forgot about that part of the question. Rinse the bottles off and drink up! You never know when 'disaster' may strike again!

 

[Elmer]

I rule out my house sitter, since I give him bottles of everything I make all the time.

There was no mess because all the wine dried up. The bottles on the bottom were sticky in a BluePom and glass. If this were to have happed on Thursday, there would have been atleast 4 days of hot weather for the wine to evaporate!

When I sprayed the floor with one step to clean it turned that weird purple that happens when One step cleans bad stuff.

Yes I used #9 corks.
I did back sweeten, but I sorbated/Kmeta prior.

The only conclusion I could make was that there was some pressure and they blew apart.
They bottles were no more than 6 inches from the floor and if the did slide and drop and break this would not have caused the glass to fly back into the crate leaving wine all over the bottles.

I was going to go all CSI as my wife suggested, but I was too tired from a 5 hour drive. I just cleaned the mess, cried a bit and threw the glass out!

 

[jamesngalveston]

what ever..but i dont see one spec of wine on the wood, wood is porous.
I dont see any wine on the white and blue blanket to the left,it would have wine all over it...
but, believe what you may...common sense dictates that much pressure would have blown the corks and the shrink wrap first..

 

[yakhunter]

I would immediately drink one of the other ones and see if it is fizzy. It was surely hot, but I doubt your basement got up to 95 degrees! How hot is your basement on a hot day?

You could recreate teh crime by leaving a bottle in a hot (95-100 F) car with the windows rolled up to see if a bottle explodes. Don't use your own car though. Maybe that neighbor of yours....

I can't imagine that the pressure diff in that space would be enough to explode a bottle. A passing T-storm should not drop pressure that much.

 

[jswordy]

what ever..but i dont see one spec of wine on the wood, wood is porous.
I dont see any wine on the white and blue blanket to the left,it would have wine all over it...
but, believe what you may...common sense dictates that much pressure would have blown the corks and the shrink wrap first..

Ima start calling you Leroy Jethro Gibbs!

After watching NCIS examine blood spatters one zillion times, I agree with James that if something fell on the bottles and busted them there would be less mess, since the wine would basically fall downward due to gravity except for a few splashes. But an exploding bottle would throw wine all over the place.

So, to mix my crime story metaphors, it looks like it was the house sitter dropping the candlestick (or something).

Elmer: Heck, why not just ask and explain that you are not mad or accusing but just trying to figure out the mystery?

Another way to eliminate or confirm is to pull the cork on a good bottle and be very attentive to whether you hear a "pop" (air entering from outside) or a "whoosh" (gas being expelled). If the cork comes out and gas is expelled when it does, and if a wine sample is gassy, you have your answer. You can always recork after checking.

Normal variation in barometric pressure will not do this, so that's out.

(yakhunter was typing while I was, apparently.)

 

[Elmer]

what ever..but i dont see one spec of wine on the wood, wood is porous.
I dont see any wine on the white and blue blanket to the left,it would have wine all over it...
but, believe what you may...common sense dictates that much pressure would have blown the corks and the shrink wrap first..

The blanket is actually hanging slightly above the bottles. It is covering bottles to the left. The angle of the photo makes the blanket look like it is on the floor, but it is not.

I agree there is no splatter, no spray.
But the bottles below the glass has splatyer!!!!!
In all my years I have never had anything like this happen.
I think I will drink a bottle rather then blow up another one!

 

[Julie]

If there was a bad storm, that would chance the barometer pressure and yes you would have had a cork pop. I have had this happen but not an exploding bottle, nor can I see a re-fermenting wine cause a bottle to explode. The cork should have shot across the room first.

 

[Sammyk]

jswordy We are with you, call Gibbs. We never miss his show and even watch reruns! On another note, we read that Ziva is leaving! booohhooo. Thought she would hook up with Tony.

 

[jswordy]

jswordy We are with you, call Gibbs. We never miss his show and even watch reruns! On another note, we read that Ziva is leaving! booohhooo. Thought she would hook up with Tony.

(I always hoped she would hook up with me!)

Remember this episode?



Oops, I am OFF TOPIC! DON'T TELL JULIE!!!!

 

[jamesngalveston]

thats ok, blows my cork...lol

 

[Bartman]

The only time I have had a cork pop out of a normally-sealed bottle was when I left it in my car during a hot Texas afternoon (I know - what was I thinking? But I was on my way to deliver it as a gift and got sidetracked on the way). You know those horror stories about kids left in cars on hot days? Well, it was not *that* bad, but it was a sad and red-wine-messy situation inside my car. Note: only one bottled popped, the other two with it were fine (though somewhat worse for the high temperatures/cooking).
Never had the glass break, even when corking, so I have no idea what sort of pressure differential would be necessary to break the glass.
Still, my theory remains: pressure buildup inside from re-fermentation after back-sweetening + warm temperature (=warmer wine than when bottled = greater pressure inside) + sudden drop in barometric pressure outside due to thunderstorm => high pressure inside and low pressure outside, along with tightly sealed #9 corks => glass on top/side of bottle (which is thinner than the glass in the neck, I think) breaks under pressure from *air* inside the bottle, because the bottles were on their side! And perhaps the breaking glass of one bottle damaged or created enough disturbance to another bottle enough to break it too!

 

[Arne]

Elmer, I would carefully put one of the bottles in the refrigerator, cool it down, then open it. If they are full of pressure, it will help relieve it some. Don't know where I read it, but somewhere it says wine fermenting in bottles can build up to 90 lbs. pressure. Think that is at least close to being enough to break a bottle. Then say you have a weak spot in one so it lets go, the pieces hitting another could pop it. Just guessing,Think I'm saying about the same thing as Bartman. Arne.