Exploding Kitchens!

[katexxxxxx]

This was put together from a couple of FB entries...

A couple of weeks back, ravenrigan mad some lovely elderflower cordial.  She TOLD me to keep it in the fridge.  Unfortunately, yesterday one of us let it loose on the work surface.  And the last couple of days have been lovely and warm...

Today my kitchen exploded!

Comments

[virginiadear]

The head of the family of a school friend of a school friend of mine made homemade root beer for his family. The stuff has to ferment, and it has to age.
I was told that from time to time, the sound of an exploding bottle or carboy, stored in the basement, could be heard from at least the ground story.

Same clean up situation, too: shards and slivers of glass, and plenty of aromatic and sticky liquid...everywhere.

[katexxxxxx]

I've known ginger beer to do the same thing. A friend of my dad's made whole lot and bottled it, and left it in the garage when he went away on holiday... Most of it exploded while he was away, and as well as a horrendously sticky garage, he had a car that needed a new windscreen, a really serious valeting of the interior, and a new paint job! I think I got away lightly!

[virginiadear]

Agreed: you did get away lightly!
And what a lucky thing it was your dad's friend's lot of ginger beer exploded while he was away, and not while he was entering the garage or his car at just that critical moment! For either him or you, it would have been a lot worse to have been present when the exploding occurred.

[g8bur]

I've had something broadly comparable happen, but not anywhere that messy nor difficult to clean up.

I had some dried herbs which I wanted to mix together, and I decided to do this by putting them in the blender and giving it a quick blip. Unfortunately there were a few small pieces of hard stem amongst the dried leaves. The blender shattered after a few seconds, and the spinning blades threw several ounces of dried mixed herbs all over the kitchen. Everything was covered in a grey-green haze of herb powder. Even though it was dry, it took some hours to clean up. There was even some behind the fridge/freezer...

[katexxxxxx]

The Kenwood blender didn't explode on my mum. She just forgot to screw the lid down firmly when making mayonnaise... SPLAT! didn't quite cover it.

My dad used to have a good story about a pressure cooker, a blown safety valve, and a redecoration of the kitchen story.

[g8bur]

SPLAT! didn't quite cover it.

I'll bet it covered everything else, though :-(

...pressure cooker, a blown safety valve, and a redecoration of the kitchen...

I can just imagine the results of that... thankfully I haven't got a pressure cooker, otherwise such a mishap would probably seek me out too :-(

[ext_2045214]

Glad the clear up has had a silver lining.

DH tells of returning to his uni flat to find his flatmate scrubbing the kitchen ceiling with the bog brush - he had allowed a Heinz tinned jam sponge pudding boil dry.....

[wouldsewif]

Wow! I'm impressed; I knew that elderflowers were supposed to have magical powers but that beats all I ever imagined. ;-) I made elderflower syrup, too, this year. My recipe is non-alcoholic and I doubt that it would develop such powers even if I left it out of the fridge. However, I never do so, and, after your tale, I never will. No Need for another Kitchen refurbishment. However, I had ordered plain brown milk bottles and twist-off lids. They had arrived in good time for bottling the syrup after its 5 days in the cellar - I thought. When on Sunday I was ready to filter the flowers and lemon slices from the concoction, I had just washed the new bottles and turned to the lids - only to discover that they were too small. Mistake at the supplier, as I quickly found out. However, I was Standing there with 8 or 9 litres of elderflower syrup and nothing to put it in. I decided to put it into freezer bags. It now rests in the freezer and I'm planning to do that Job next week. Then I'll fill the bottles, put the lids on loosely, and put the

[katexxxxxx]

This one was a cold infusion, so not intended for long keeping and prone to fermenting naturally. You make it, keep it refrigerated (where we failed!), and drink it in a week or two.

[femsc]

Ah yes, exploding drinks. Ginger beer... a garage full, complete with car, workbench, metal door... Father's initial reaction was to shout at me for leaving the side gate open, thus allowing it to bang shut. Even he had to admit that it was one hell of a bang... so he went out to investigate just in time to hear a further series of bangs and the unmistakable sound of flying glass. Also, the smell may have given it away by then!

At school, I was heating something (no idea what) in a test tube over a Bunsen burner. As you do. To this day I maintain that my reaction was the right one, and it was the rest of the class whose experiments went wrong. After all, theirs didn't paint the lab ceiling in spots of orange... Actually, I was secretly quite proud of that one - but don't tell Mrs Whateverhernamewas.

[corsetrasewing]

We have heat too right now and my Bro-in-law had a bottle explode on him yesterday!

[katexxxxxx]

I hope no-one was hurt!