Exploding Bottles (welcome back from vacaction!)

[Tess]

you have some powerfully set corks!! You still would think they would blow before the bottle would

 

[tonyt]

Degas and re-sorbate the wine. Clean the bottles. Send the blanket to JSWordy. Drown the cat. Get a new neighbor. Take back the IPA.

 

[Julie]

Sammyk, like Dan says in a cool dark place. I keep mine in the frig and I have heard where others keep in the freezer. Sorbate is only good for 6 months but if you keep it in the frig you can get a year.

 

[JohnT]

just to get some closure...

"Blunk-Blunk" ("law and order" sound effect)

(Fade-in).

Judge: "Madam foreman, have you reached a verdict?"

(Elderly lady stands up): "Yes we have your honor. We the jury, in the matter of the "busted bottles", have found the defendant "hot weather/bad or no sorbate/and back sweetened" guilty on all charges. So say we all".

johnT.

 

[Elmer]

I have always kept my sorbate in my bucket of supplies.
I may have to buy another batch and keep it in the fridge.
I know I put sorbate in before I backsweeten.
I really hope my last 10 bottles of DB do not suffer the same fate.
You will all hear my screams if that is the case.

Of course the only wine in my basement with sugar in it is DB.
So all other bottles should be safe!

I should mention once I open the bottle there was no wine left to degass because it all blew out of the bottle!

 

[clight385]

I have a data sheet from a manufacturer that says shelf life for sorbate is minimum 2 years from manufacture date. I just ordered some nutrients & tannin from Brew & Wine and Doug included shelf life & manufacture dates for each item. I don't have the paperwork with me, but a few were 3 years if stored properly. I didn’t order sorbate so not sure if an info sheet comes with it.

View attachment Potassium Sorbate pec.pdf

 

[chrisjw]

Hey judge, wait, we have new evidence that the neighbor may have entered the house and replaced the sorbate with sugar. Possible reason is that plaintiff did not share enough of his wine with defendant. Who's guilty now!

 

[wineforfun]

I have a data sheet from a manufacturer that says shelf life for sorbate is minimum 2 years from manufacture date. I just ordered some nutrients & tannin from Brew & Wine and Doug included shelf life & manufacture dates for each item. I don't have the paperwork with me, but a few were 3 years if stored properly. I didn’t order sorbate so not sure if an info sheet comes with it.

Thanks for the pdf. I hope it is right as I would assume it would be. 6 months seems awfully short for life expectancy on sorbate.

 

[jswordy]

Sammyk, like Dan says in a cool dark place.

This is where Julie has Dan in the corner - in a cool dark place! He managed to get McGeek to sneak out an email to me when she wasn't looking...

 

[jswordy]

I should mention once I open the bottle there was no wine left to degass because it all blew out of the bottle!

Now THAT I would like to see a pic of!!!

 

[jswordy]

Thanks for the pdf. I hope it is right as I would assume it would be. 6 months seems awfully short for life expectancy on sorbate.

It's highly stable. The wine blew most probably for one of two reasons:

1. No degassed. Bottled cool, and the warm temps released the gas.

2. Spontaneous malolactic fermentation, which happens more than people suspect. In a university study of commercial wineries, they found malo spontaneously occurring as part of the process in some and the winemaker didn't even know!

 

[Sammyk]

Not to hijack but I could not resist. Julie could send Dan here to our cellar, it is dark and cool. THEN we would learn first hand how to make better wine! Jim, of course you could come to because I think you would also be a good personal teacher.
Ah but then we would have to turn on the light and it would no longer be dark......

 

[jamesngalveston]

you should have used beano on it, instead of sorbate

 

[Runningwolf]

Not to hijack but I could not resist. Julie could send Dan here to our cellar, it is dark and cool. THEN we would learn first hand how to make better wine! Jim, of course you could come to because I think you would also be a good personal teacher.
Ah but then we would have to turn on the light and it would no longer be dark......

Ok, first off I'm not going to touch the line about the light.

As far as you guys learning first hand how to make better wine, that's not how it would work. You see, I have also learned a lot right here on this forum. We all learn from each other. I am sure there are things I would learn from you or Jim (even if it's "not what to do when building a wine cellar" "). Bottom line is we all learn from each other and each others mistakes. I've made a few myself like putting a 1.5L bottle of wine in my 100° car.

 

[jamesngalveston]

well said, thank you....I know i have made many, but with the help here, they are fewer and fewer...I hope that one day, I have something to contribute...that will be use full for others.

 

[Hokapsig]

Dan, NOW you tell me not to put a wine bottle in a hot car with the windows rolled up. DOH!!!

I have only learned this lesson 3 times this summer. I figure I have at least 2 more to go....

 

[Wade E]

Ive had the shrink wraps on top hold the cork back before so yes they are strong enough to hold the cork and therefore the bottle blows. I also left 2 bottles standing straight up in my old car once and both corks blew and hit the headliner, luckily on those 2 no wine came out and sprayed the inside of my car. The car incident was from heat but the cellar incident with the shrink wrap holding the corks on and bottles blowing was from a small amount of fermentation in the bottles. It was barely enough to notice any sediment but non the less it was there. I would open a bottle and see if there is any sediment in there at all and if its a little fizzy at all.

 

[Elmer]

Now that I think of it:
I drove around last wednesday with 2 bottles of DB in my trunk. I was giving them to 2 guys I golf with.
Last Wednesday was 95 degrees and the bottles were warm after spending the day in trunk of my black car.

I most likely used the same sorbate I used on the bluepom.
Of course I have not received any nasty phone calls or emails.
So hopefully these bottles did not explode on them either!

I have 1 bottle of Bluepom left. I will see if I can capture the eruption!

 

[clight385]

I suspect a combination of internal pressure and weak glass. Wine is shipped cross country all the time with no issues and elevated temperature alone should not break a wine bottle. Add in some fermentation with thermo expansion (remember pressure is additive) and you could be in trouble. Wine bottles are not design to hold carbonation like a coke bottle.
Another note: If you put the bottle back together and look at the glass fragments, a low number of large pieces indicate a low force was needed to break the glass. If you had lots of smaller pieces it would indicate a high force was need to break the glass.

 

[Sammyk]

clight385 excellent post. I did look at the busted bottles because a drop would cause large pieces IMHO that is why I thought of the cat.
Having a bottle spray everywhere as I had a few weeks ago, made me wonder why it sprayed and did not blow the bottle off the wine racks. I still think it was the cat. If was Co2 or re-fermentation I think it would have sprayed the wine. Perhaps the cat heard the spraying sound and investigated and then knocked the bottles down. Cats are curious critters and investigators.

On the other hand the spray pattern would have indicated if it was spray or a broken bottle. It does not appear from the photos to be a huge mess other than a broken bottle. From my spraying bottle it did not go far but having dropped and broke a bottle of wine on cement, the force of the drop sent the wine much farther out than the sprayed bottle did from the impact on the cement.