Hey all,

Bottled my IPA last week and have discovered I may have really over-primed them. I used 1 cup table sugar in 1 cup of water and siphoned only 3.7 gallons of finished beer onto it at about 60 degrees or so. By the nomographs online (Palmer's specifically), I'm probably at a 4.8 or higher amount of C02 in these babies.

Worried about exploding bottles, or at least wasting good beer due to gushing (all bottles are in a big rubbermaid container), I'm wondering if cracking the caps and re-capping is a good method for releasing some pressure safely?

i think your best bet is to open one periodically and, when the carbonation is to your liking, immediately refrigerate them all. you might already be there after one week.

I recently did almost the same thing. I had a 4 gallon batch of Barley wine and mindlessly primed for 5 gallons along with adding champagne yeast to make sure it carbed. It took only 5 days and it was well carbed. I moved them downstairs where it's about 60 degrees to slow them down and so far none have bombed on me.

Now I crack one every couple of days and check.

Thanks for the responses, guys. Yeah, I really need a scale - I'm just guestimating with volumes for priming sugar based on howtobrew and other sources. I also spaced and didn't consider my final volume of beer till after I had the filled bottles to do the math from (need markings on my carboy or bottling bucket!)

My suggestion for re-capping in a few days was over concern of 'shutting them down' early in the fridge and having overly sweet beer because of the un-digested priming sugar.

So initially indications are that re-capping isn't a good idea?

one, i don't think the quantity of sugar (especially after some has been converted to CO2) is anything you'll ever notice.

two, no, i think re-capping sounds laborious and probably ineffective. even if you release the excess pressure built up in that moment, the real issue is the residual sugar left to digest, which will still be there after you re-cap. to be truly effective, you'd need to leave them uncapped and let the sugar ferment out. big possibility of infection, oxidation, etc.

i could be wrong, but that's my hunch.

hmmm fair enough. Totally agree on the laborious bit.

However, maybe I don't understand how the process works well enough. I figured 'x' amount of sugar has been consumed during the last week. Un-capping for even a second would release any built-up pressure and a small amount of C02. By then re-capping, there would be the lesser 'y' amount of sugar remaining.

Oh, but you're saying not much C02 would have come out of solution by simply poppin the cap and re-capping, I gotcha now - you'd have the leave the bottles open for awhile (and who knows how long?). Am I understanding you properly?

yep...to get all that residual co2 out you'd have to leave them open till they were nearly flat. and then who knows if you would have enough sugar left in there to re-carbonate it.

bingo. you'll retain the majority of built-up CO2 in solution. the headspace, by comparison, is negligible.

I agree with sweetloaf. I had this happen with a beer a couple years back and I just put it all in the refrigerator after it carbed. I just opened one every week or so to make sure of no bottle bombs. Worked great but tied up fridge space for awhile.
Cheers
CN

I overcarbonated a batch...though not as extreme as you apparently did. I did have success opening and re-capping. I didn't find it to be that much of a hassle. I started with just a few to see the results, then did the rest of the batch. You'll need to leave the bottles open long enough for CO2 to escape. 8-10 minutes did the trick for me. Some of my bottles would overflow in that amount of time, so I chilled them a bit before opening. If you have a lot of sugar in there, I'm guessing that you might need to open and re-cap a second time after some additional carbonation occurs.

Not to worry. Serve it ice cold + when opening, lift cap gently a few times before popping the cap or open into a large pitcher to avoid waste. Ive had some super gushers in my 13 years of brewing + never a grenade, my secret? heavy bottles.