…… Problems with bottled homemade vinegar

[kyrsyan]

I brew my own vinegars. From scratch. It's resulted in some really tasty ones. And since my son is allergic to apples, I make a pear cider vinegar that we use in place of apple cider vinegar.

I finally got around to bottling the last batch which gave me two 17 oz grolsch style bottles for the pantry. I did a lot of others at the same time so I could start new batches.

Today I went and pulled down one bottle and it was cracked. If it had been a canning jar I would have said it was a thermal crack. A jagged crack all the way around the bottle but at about the same height and an straight crack through the base.

The fermenting was done. There were no mothers left in any of the jars and the vinegars were completely, thoroughly filtered. All of the other jars on the same shelf are fine.

So any ideas? I'd like to avoid this occurring again since it takes a good year to get a decent pear cider vinegar. Although my pantry smells pretty good at the moment.

 

[ioujc]

Maybe next time use a balloon over the top of the bottle so the "cider" can expand during the fermentation process. That's what I have always done with my apple cider, as well as homemade cider vinegar.

 

[kyrsyan]

I did. These are completed vinegars. No fermenting going on at all. Best I can figure is that I had a bad bottle. None of the rest of the bottles on that shelf are showing any issues. And there are quite a few. I had 5 or so different vinegars finished on my counters that got bottled. Enough that all I should need to work on this next year is white wine vinegar and some more pear cider vinegar. And I want to experiment with making one from "dark" fruits (cherries, plums, blackberries, raspberries, etc).

 

[summerthyme]

I suspect it was just a bad bottle. A previous hairline fracture may not have been visible, but failed from the increase in pressure when you filled it.

Summerthyme