exploded beer bottle.....

[whitedj]

I took Kent's advice and built a bottle filler, used it for the first time last night. Worked well, I even found a fitting to plug hose into my perlicks.

Think I may have done something wrong as I had a bottle explode sitting on my counter last night/this morning. Cleaned up the remainder and threw them in the fridge, thinking this would keep the pressures down for the time being.

I filled the bottle to the brim with beer and then capped it. Is this wrong? I remember reading to fill the beer as much as possible when bottling off the keg, but is there an optimal head space?

Or was this just a bad bottle. A flaw present and was bound to break under any pressure.

[kjball]

I fill to the brim with the tube in the bottom. When you pull the tube out, the displacement of the wand leaves some headspace. You need the headspace. Liquid is a non-compressible fluid. If you fill it with cold liquid, and allow it to warm, the liquid will expand, and needs a place to go. The air in the headspace is compressible and will give the necessary cushion.