Fermentation Support Forum

Hi there,

I'm a day out from bottling my ginger brew. It's currently fermenting in a crock.

I have a few liter glass bottles with swing tops I was planning on using for bottling and fermenting, but I've read many a cautionary tale against using glass (explosion factor).

Should I go get a few plastic water bottles & use that? Are my glass swing tops OK? If so, how do I minimize likelihood of them turning to bottle bombs?

Thanks!

-Jalajopa

What I do is bottle a single plastic pop or water bottle and put the rest of it in glass. Leave them all out on the counter or wherever while they mature, and use the plastic one as a judge of pressure by squeezing it every morning and evening. once the plastic bottle is hard to my grip, I know the pressure in all of them is good, and put them in the fridge. The cold does two things. It slows fermentation so that pressure from CO2 production will increase only gradually and also increases the amount the CO2 goes into solution. At that point, as long as we're going to drink the soda in the next couple or few weeks, it's all good.

I have lost bottles in the back of the fridge and they can develop a stupendous amount of pressure. I've never had one explode, but I have made serious messes when that happened and it came shooting out all over the kitchen ceiling and floor and walls and appliances and me and my family....so beware!