How can fermentation break glass if there’s no increase in matter in the bottle?

Question

I’m thinking of like when you bottle wine that’s still fermenting, and it explodes. I understand that the fermentation process raises the air pressure inside the bottle. What I *don’t* understand is how? When you pump air into a balloon, the air pressure rises because there are *more* air molecules entering the balloon.

With wine in a bottle, you have a fixed amount of matter at a certain temperature. I don’t understand how fermentation could increase air pressure in a closed system?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Blow up a balloon. You just put maybe 5 grams of air into the balloon to make it that big.

Now fill the balloon with water. You put maybe 2000 grams of water to make it the same size.

Imagine how big the balloon would need to be to fit 2000 grams of air!

Gas takes up more space than liquid. As the matter inside the glass turns from liquid into gas, more space is required. The gas builds up, increasing the pressure until the glass breaks.