Yesterday on December 5th, 2019 at 3:45 p. m. a full bottle of our homemade brandy on the small kitchen table on our kitchen spontaneously exploded. I am a retired university professor in chemistry and very knowledgeable in physics but I do not understand how could it happen?
One possibility: the fermentation process produces CO2; if the container was sealed tightly before the fermentation was complete, then the pressure built inside it might led to explosion.
The brandy was distilled from wine or another fermented product? If so, that tends to rule out fermentation gasses.
My best guess is stress in the glass that built up until the bottle shattered. Was the brandy warm when placed in the bottle?
Can you tell if it exploded (pressure build up) or imploded (sealed while warm and bottle was flawed)?
Dear Vladimir: Thank you for your interest. As a rather experienced chemist I did consider this possibility but it seemed highly unlikely. The brandy was prepared from autochthonous plums in October this year and according to recipes of old Serbian plum brandy masters. Since then the brandy was kept in a glass container (10 L) with a larger cork on the top. Then the brandy from the container was poured from time to time in a 1 L bottle for private consumption.
Dear Jack/James: The bottle with the plum brandy was brought from a cold cellar (say 5 Celsius centigrade) and was left on a small kitchen table for at least a half hour at room temperature.
Pavle,
I am sure you know your process better, and have no doubts that the fermentation reaction is finished; but there still could be CO2 dissolved in your brandy, so perhaps pressure build-up cannot be ruled out. And, if the bottle was not particularly strong, with increased temperature (and perhaps some unintended shaking), excessive pressure could have developed that led to the explosion which you observed.
Just my thoughts. Similar to the bottle of Coke, taken from the fridge and shaken before opening ...
The only thing which confuses me is how there is still carbon dioxide in brandy, since I understand brandy to be a distilled product.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandy
Could we possibly be thinking of different products?
I informed you that the bottle with the homemade plum brandy was left on our small kitchen table for at least a half hour. My wife told me it was there for at least three 3 hours. Primary larger container (10L) was open many times for pouring the brandy into the small bottles for private consumption. During this routine the 10 L container stayed open for a couple minutes.
Plum wine, or plum brandy?
Wine might still ferment and build pressure. Brandy, as I know the term, would be mostly alcohol and water, with no yeast because I understand brandy to be distilled.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandy
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