Blown Champagne Bottle Corks

[MrBoring]

I made a beverage called Sima. Not really a wine, but a beerlike quaff. Ingredients were 1 gall water, two lemons, 1 cup sugar white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 1 packet Nottingham ale yeast. Combined in primary fermenter with airlock. After 7 days put 1.25 tsp of corn sugar in each champagne bottle and bottled. Put a few raisins in each bottle. When raisins plump, ready to drink. One week later cork blew out. Opened other bottles and those shot the liquid 20 ft. Question: Not long enough or too long fermentation? Should I have done secondary fermentation? Not put in the corn sugar in each bottle to make it sparkling? I followed the instructions in a book titled Strong Waters. It said to bottle after 4-5 days but I waited a week. Thanks for any observations. I did not check the gravity at all.

 

[Wade E]

Can you print these instructions???

 

[MrBoring]

Instructions

1. Peel the lemons and scrape the white pith from the peels so that only the zest remains. Coarsely chop the zest and put it in the primary fermenter.
2. Juice the now-skinless lemons.
3. Boil the water, then stir in the sugars. Pour the hot liquid onto the lemon zest in the fermenter.
4. When the liquid has cooled to room temperature, stir in the lemon juice and add the yeast. Snap on fermenter lid and attach the airlock.
5. In 4 or 5 days, the beverage should finish fermenting. Add 7 teaspoons of corn sugar and bottle in Champagne-style bottles, beer bottles or soda bottles. Put a few raisins in each bottle. (I put 1.25 tsp of corn sugar in each bottle because earlier in the book the author stated that was another option)
6. This beverage isn't meant to age. Traditionally, when the raisins are plump, it is ready to drink.

That's the instructions. Verbatim except my comment about the corn sugar in each bottle.
Thanks again for any insight. I'd like to try and make it again. It has a nice citrus flavor. Reportedly something drank on the Finland May Day celebration. I did use one 22 oz beer bottle with a crown cap and I was able to diffuse the pressure by slightly opening the cap.

 

[Wade E]

Now depending on what thet sg was when you put it in there thats the problem. It should have been done fermenting before putting them in with the added sugar. If you were still at say 1.040 then boom!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, you really need to wire tie the Champagne corks down. They will be under great pressure and you dont want that mess in your cellar!

 

[MrBoring]

Actually, I did wire the stoppers but one of them I must not have done a good job tightening it down. On the others, as soon as I removed the wires I could see the stopper starting to move up. I need to take more interest in the SG and educate myself. Many of the non-wine recipes in the book I've been reading don't make any reference to the SG. Perhaps it is expected and goes without saying. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. I'm having a great time creating various types of beverages: wine, spruce beer, hard cider, sumac ale, ginger ale, persimmon beer, mead, and I did one Island Mist kit of Pom Zin. I did check the SG on the kit as instructed. Thanks again!

 

[Airplanedoc]

Since I saw no mention of it. I believe you are supposed to keep carbonated beverages well chilled before opening to keep more co2 in solution thus slowing the geyser effect. I think you probably still have a over carbonation issue.

 

[MrBoring]

Giving it more thought and some reading, I'm guessing should have let it ferment out and checked for a stable hydrometer before bottling? But if it has run its course on fermentation, would the corn sugar create carbonation?