At 5h15, I was awakened by a boom and the sound of breaking glass. My first thought was, "Is J home? Did he break something?" (He works the night shift), but no, he finishes at 5h15 and his work is an hour away. No other sounds accompanied the first one, but still I got of bed and did a turn on the second floor, stopping to listen at the stairs that lead to the kids' bedroom. Nothing. Outside, nothing. In my very coherent state (not!), I decided that burglars would not be breaking in so "late" of a morning and determined that perhaps a picture frame had fallen from the wall, something that has already happened here.
I dozed fitfully until 7h00, and then a strange smell began to tickle my nose. J had stopped to nap on the road home, so I was the first to discover not a fallen picture frame but an exploded bottle of kefir water.
All that was left of the bottle in its original location was the base.
I thank the Lord and prayed in gratitude all day as I cleaned shards and glass powder from all over our 24m2 kitchen that the explosion had happened when everyone was safely in bed. It very seriously could have been lethal; the largest pieces were projected just past our dining table, 4m away from where the bottle stood.
![](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/mnfaure/9150632/388243/388243_600.jpg)
I am not sure what happened. I always respect the headspace when carbonating beverages through fermentation. My hypothesis is that I was using a glass bottle from the French equivalent of a dollar store, and perhaps it was intended to be more decorative than useful.
We have now moved our kefir bottles to the inside of a cabinet.
If you ferment drinks, too, please be careful!!!