New Beer, Old Bottles

I bottled my Belgian Wit homebrewed beer on Saturday. I made sure the gravity (density of the liquid, essentially how much alcohol exists as a percentage of the overall liquid). Too soon, and fermentation is still too forceful to tame.

By the hydrometer's reading, I was safe to bottle. I thought.

Today, I discovered, one of the bottle's had its bottom blown off (see Exhibit A with the cap still on). I had prepared for this as a possibility. The bottles were in a cooler upstairs in the closet, I removed the clothes and coats in the unlikely case of spray (I had the cooler itself in a larger container), and warned the wife it could happen. No causalities except for one bottle.

Turns out, the upstairs is just too hot right now. The heatwave, I surmise, has the upstairs too far above the required 70 degrees. I knew I was pushing my luck. This Belgian Wit is tricky...it has three different phases of fermentation, all requiring a differing temperature. It started in the basement, went to the second floor, and is now on the first floor.

Into every case of homebrewing bottles, a little explosion may come. And it did. When Jesus used the new wine and old wineskin parable, one of the points was that His message was explosive. And is: God loves sinners. There is another word for non-explosive churches. Dead....dead as the wood that the pews are carved out of. Things may look nice, people might be agreeable, but have no doubt, that church is dead. You know when a church is about itself primarily, it is dead.

Conflict must be contained and constructive. Exploding bottle everywhere or nowhere means that trouble is in the wort of the church. Now, that is an application the Reformers, most of them devoted beer drinkers, would have liked!