Tried to make a Pina colada mead following city steading brewing’s recipe, accidentally bought coconut milk instead of coconut water and found out only when everything was sanitized and pineapple juice already in the fermenter, and thought “what the hell, what the worst that could happen? If it goes rancid I’ll just dump it out”, we’ll, I woke up to a lovely Pina colada smell and my kitchen absolutely covered with goop and air lock in the other side of the kitchen. Learn from my dumbassery.
Damn. That has always been a fear of mine and sometimes I wonder whether I should be wearing a full suit of armor when transporting bottles from carbonation fermentation to the fridge for consumption. Never happened yet, but never know. Recently got into kegging to reduce this risk.
To be fair, it only happened to me once in the 7 years I’ve been brewing, and may have been due to a combination of factors: lack of experience, extreme carbonation, probably an infected bottle, maybe a weakened bottle. Even the other, intact bottles from that batch were massive gushers. It was also the first time I added fruit to a brew, so fruit particles contributed to the whole fiasco. The taste was fantastic tho.
I’d say, if you check that your fermentation is truly done before bottling, your priming is sensible and your bottles are squeaky clean and thoroughly disinfected, there shouldn’t be any risks.