John 'Shaggy' Kolesar wrote:[color=blue]
> On Tue, 03 Apr 2007 01:01:42 GMT, <beowulf_is_not_here@hotmail.com> wrote:[color=green][color=darkred]
>>> If you leave too little head space in the bottle, the beer will not properly
>>> carbonate. I don't know why, but it won't.[/color]
>> I've read that this is because the pressure in the bottle builds up too
>> quickly and inhibits the yeast before they can finish carbonating the beer.[/color]
>
> MDixon (used to be a regular on here) did some experiments a while ago
> along those lines. IIRC, he found that yeast would remain active up until
> around 45PSI or so, before they shut down and ceased activity. Can a bottle
> take that much pressure? I don't know for sure, but it sounds high. I
> would guess that the bottle would blow before the yeast stopped?[/color]

I know from an episode of Myth Busters that 3L plastic soda bottles blow
up around 90 PSI. Is it reasonable to expect a glass bottle to hold
more or less?

I don't know. Glass is thicker, but also more brittle. IIRC, the
source for my original statement was one of the Charlie Papazian books.
So he may have been speculating at that point.