Exploding Apples?!

Here is a slightly edited e-mail sent to me from one of the recipients of the (supposedly) NON-carbonated cider:

"Hi,

I went into the basement this afternoon to do laundry. Smelled something.....nice..... rather fruity.
Checked the potatoes - no rotters.
Checked the jelly - all of it OK.
Followed my nose (and [the dog]) around the corner - to the "wine cellar".
The 1000 Apple Cider had blown it's [sic] cork.

Not a problem. I put towels over what was on the floor and am drinking what was left in the bottle.
It's quite good. I'm sad that so much of it is on the floor.

Love, [L.]"

Uh oh. This means our stabilizing chemicals didn't work the way that they should have, or that we bottled too early. So when we added our sugar, it kept fermenting and therefore carbonated, generating pressure on the cork and causing it to blow. We're lucky we don't have glass all over her basement floor.

Problem: We bottled about five gallons total of the apple cider! If I remember correctly, four of those gallons were of the exploding variety, the last of the not-wanting-to-carbonate variety (why is this backwards?!).

Other problem: Joe is away on vacation in Canada. He probably doesn't know right now that his basement may be doomed to an appley mess, so I may have to consider calling his mother in the morning to warn her that she may start hearing some explosions...