carbonation

[harbinger]

When during carbonation in plastic bottles are any of the following most likely to occur,explosions,splits and fizzing all over my bathroom,would it be near the beginning at the end or somewhere in between? Not overly concerned just prefer not to lose any testicles if i'm in the shower lol

[crafty john]

None of the above should happen, as long as you don't bottle your beer too early or over prime you will be fine.

[orlando]

Do you have an hydrometer? If so your problems are over. Once you have at least 3 readings the same over 3 days then the beer has largely finished fermenting, a few days extra won't hurt as the yeast will continue to work on other important stuff. The next thing to decide is the level of carbonation you want, for ales you are looking at around 2 volumes and more if it is lager based, the other view is whether you keg it instead in which lower than 2 may apply if you prefer cask style conditioning. There are numerous calculators on the web to help choose how much sugar to use, I would just ensure you use batch priming as your method, as this ensures a more even distribution of the sugar and prevents the sort of mistake where one bottle gets none and the next gets twice as much. The latter can be a "light blue touch paper and retire" moment