"Venting" bottles?

I have a brown ale that I primed with brown sugar; its been in the bottle for 5 weeks. I miscalculated how much the brown sugar would carbonate the beer as compared to corn sugar, so the beer is over carbonated. Its not horrible; the carbonation level is probably where a heffe is supposed to be, but it is affecting the taste of the beer. Its a good batch, but the carbonation is bothering me. If I removed the caps and let the beer "vent" for 30 minutes and recapped, could this help? Any tips? Thanks!

Have you tired chilling them down for a week minimum, if not longer, to draw in the co2? I'd rather try that then venting, or doing anything else.

If you have a moderate amount of head space, just removing the caps and replacing them will make a noticeable difference.

I have successfully lifted the caps to hear the "pffffft", and then reseating those caps. I've even done it twice with the same batch, same caps, successfully. If it's truly overcarbed, don't hesitate to do this. It's easy, quick and painless.

Revvy said:

Have you tired chilling them down for a week minimum, if not longer, to draw in the co2? I'd rather try that then venting, or doing anything else.

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The problem I have with the beer isn't the amount of head...it pours a good 2-3 fingers, but that's fine. The problem is the pop-like effervescence of the beer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't cold conditioning simply put more CO2 into solution, thus leading to more effervescence? I want to get some CO2 out of solution, not put more in....

Newton said:

The problem I have with the beer isn't the amount of head...it pours a good 2-3 fingers, but that's fine. The problem is the pop-like effervescence of the beer. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't cold conditioning simply put more CO2 into solution, thus leading to more effervescence? I want to get some CO2 out of solution, not put more in....

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Often when people have gushers it is NOT because there is enough CO2 in solution, sometimes it is still in the headspace and hasn't gone into solution yet. It is similar to what is shown and explained in week one of this video in my bottling thread.



The pronloged cold will pull some of the excess co2 into solution which often will cut down on the gushing...unless you are really really over carbed, duw to way to much priming sugar.

He's clearly saying there is too much c02 in solution...

I don't see the problem, just shake it out in the glass.

Pilgarlic said:

I have successfully lifted the caps to hear the "pffffft", and then reseating those caps. I've even done it twice with the same batch, same caps, successfully. If it's truly overcarbed, don't hesitate to do this. It's easy, quick and painless.

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I often use plastic bottles so venting them is so easy, but I have also done it with glass bottles, and just recapped them. Its not a problem.

I too have a brown ale that's been in the bottle around six weeks that may be over carbed. Maybe what is being described here isn't the same issue I have. My beer pours great with a decent head, no gushers but tastes a lot like seltzer which masks the flavor of the beer. Could this be over carbed? I primed five gallons with 4.5 ounces of corn sugar. I get a pop and a nice cloud of CO2 when I open them but I won't really call it excessive.

Revvy mentions letting them chill for a week but this seems counter intuitive to me. Wouldn't more CO2 get absorbed into the beer? For the record I usually only chill for a day or two to conserve space.

I used flip tops for most of them so it is pretty easy to let em breath a bit. I popped open the one in the fridge and will try it later to see if it makes a difference. I also popped a warm one but it did gush quite a bit so I think I need to get them chilled before popping the top. I will also try Revvy's advice and chill one for a week.

I don't get why nobody understands the OP problem. Just remove the caps completely, by the time the last cap comes off your ready to start recapping the first ones. I would make sure they are warm though.

Why warm? More Co2 in the headspace?

obie_fl said:

Why warm? More Co2 in the headspace?

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Exactly. From what i am picking up, there aren't gushers right? Just slightly overcarbonated, well from my short experience, this is the easiest way to fix it. After the bottle is recapped, the co2 will escape from the beer to repressurize the headspace.

Yeah my problem is not a "gusher" but rather too much CO2 in the beer itself. It tastes more like Alka-Seltzer than an English Mild. And once again, this was my fault as I primed it with brown sugar and evidently this "primes more" than corn sugar. I'm definitely going to try prying slightly to hear the "pfff" and then reseating the cap. Thanks for all the tips though

I had an Arrogant Bastard clone that I overcarbonated pretty badly. When cold I could lift the cap just enough to depressurize the headspace, which worked. But because it's cold there's not nearly as much gas in the headspace as when warm. Lifting the cap when warm would get a big pffffft (lots of CO2 released), but it had to be quickly reseated since beer would start to foam out the top within a few seconds.

These bottles needed more than one venting, since the overcarb was pretty bad (only a few oz of beer, the rest foam when poured). I actually repeated the venting process 7 or 8 times with the same caps and have not had any explosions or cap blowoffs to this day. Yes I know that seems absurd and potentially stupid -- I did keep them inside a cooler during the week or two this process lasted, just because I didn't know if the caps would fail from fatigue/deformation. Really speaks to the design of the cap/bottle interface.

In the end I got the intended outcome: normally carbonated beer.

Well thats pretty encouraging.

So Newton, any luck?

I'm in the same boat (primed for 5 gallons, but only bottled 4). I plan on venting them at least once 2 weeks after the bottling date.

How did your beer turn out? At what point since bottling did you vent them?

I think I started noticing carbonation problems about 3 weeks after bottling. Per this thread, I ended up venting the bottles 5 or 6 times over the next few weeks. The beer is stable now and that batch is ok.

I did not vent 2 of the bottles and these turned into geisers at week 4. Glad I vented, or the whole batch would've been a bust.