Can anything be done to fix an over carbonated bottle of beer? I have a full batch that I'm trying to fix.
Pop the caps and recap everything just to release the pressure and hope that it balances out?
How long have they been in the bottles? If it's under 3 weeks, more than likely your beer isn't over carbed, it's just that the co2 isn't fully in solution yet.
We get this all the time from impatient folks who open their bottles WAAAAAYYYYYYY early. If you opened them at three weeks, or more, you never would have noticed.
If you watch Poindexter's video on time lapsed carbonation, you will see that in many instances, before a beer is carbed it may gush, that's not from infection, or mixing of sugars, but because the co2 hasn't evened out- it hasn't been pulled fully into the beer. Think of it as there's a lot of co2 being generated and most of it is in the headspace, not in the beer, so there's still "over pressure" in the bottle, so it gushes when it is opened.
But when the beer is truly carbed it all evens out, across the bottles.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlBlnTfZ2iw]time lapse carbonation - YouTube[/ame]
Yes.
Short of that, dumping all of them back into your fermenter and letting it go flat and then try again is iffy at best.
You NEVER want to "dump your beer back into your fermenter." Unless you want 5 gallons of liquid cardboard. There's no way to do that without having the beer moving through the surrounding air, no matter how carefully you try...and Fermented beer + oxygen = Liquid Cardboard.
If your beer is really over carbed, and it's not because you're impatience, the next best thing would be to make sure you've chilled your beer AT LEAST a week, or more, to get as much of the co2 into the fluid as possible.
Next you need to determine WHY it's over carbed? There's only 2 reasons, too much sugar or an infection.
If it's too much sugar you can try venting the bottles and re capping them.
If it's an infection, then there's no solution.
But "dumping beer back into a fermenter" is never a good solution.