Overcarbed then Undercarbed

OK, so I over-carbonated a whole batch of Bock (used about 8 oz of corn sugar for a 5 gal batch). Ended up with gushers. Luckily, I had bottled them into Grolsh bottles, so I "burped" them several times to release the pressure and bring the carbonation down. Unfortunately, I overdid that and now the beer is almost flat.

So now I am considering pouring all of the beers into a keg and force carbonating it. My concern is now oxidation. If I just simply pour the beer from the bottles into the keg, I'm scared that I'll get too much oxygen in the beer. If I siphon the beer from the bottles into the keg, I'm afraid that it will take forever and I'll probably just won't do it.

The other option is to pour some more sugar into each bottle and wait for carbonation again.

Any suggestions as to what to do to save this batch? The beer tastes fine, I've just totally botched the carbonation.

Thanks in advance for any advice

if you have the keg, go that route. Drink it first before oxidation really takes hold. Its that or dump it.

Its hard to pour into a corny, you have more room to work in a bottling bucket and you can run a hose into the keg. Its less than Ideal though.

Don't they make carbonation tablets? I think they are like pre-measured doses of priming sugar that you could drop into each bottle. If you dump your beer into a keg oxygen may ruin the batch, it did when I tried that.

Thanks, that's the kind of advice I was looking for. One "been there done that" and one really good idea. I'm pretty sure that my LHBS has the tablets. That's gotta be the quickest way to fix it.

This place is great!

POAS said:

Thanks, that's the kind of advice I was looking for. One "been there done that" and one really good idea. I'm pretty sure that my LHBS has the tablets. That's gotta be the quickest way to fix it.

This place is great!

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I've used the carb tabs, and they worked great. Check the "dosage" to make sure you have the correct amount (some use 2 tabs for 12 ounces, for example). It may foam a little, due to nucleation points when you add them, so do them one at a time, just opening, dropping them in, and recapping right away. That should work out just fine.

Yooper said:

I've used the carb tabs, and they worked great. Check the "dosage" to make sure you have the correct amount (some use 2 tabs for 12 ounces, for example). It may foam a little, due to nucleation points when you add them, so do them one at a time, just opening, dropping them in, and recapping right away. That should work out just fine.

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Thanks for the tip. I did get the tablets and basically used only one tab per bottle and now the carbonation is perfect. Well, at least good enough for me. The batch was salvaged! Thank goodness for Grolsh bottles. It would have been a pain without them.