Severe overcarbonation: will it get better, or worse?

So, it's been 2 weeks since I bottled my Mango-Peach Wit.

I "dry-hopped" for the final week of secondary with peach and mango slices; when I bottled, it smelled very, very alcoholic, like grain alcohol fumes. I was worried about bottle bombs, since there was a chance that there were still an excess of unfermented sugars in there, in addition to the priming sugar.

After 1 week, I tried a 12oz bottle. Tiny bit of carbonation, figured I'd wait another week to try again.

Tried another last night, like I said, 2 weeks post-bottling. As soon as I popped the cap, it started to foam over. Not wanting to lose a drop, I sucked the foam down (oh, the most delicious foam I've ever had!) and poured the glasses when it subsided. It was, quite frankly, one of the best beers I've ever had. Yes, I'm extremely proud of our efforts. But I do wonder whether this problem of overcarbonation will get better, or worse, with time. Thoughts?

Will it get better? No, not in my experience. You have a hope in that it will probably vary from bottle to bottle. My guess is little chunks of your fruit have made it to the bottle causing gushing.

Try opening them slowly, the gush will creep up the neck as you release the cap, open it just enough to let it start to creep up and stick it in the sink until the pressure equalizes.

If you keep them real cold before drinking that might help too.

And drink them as fast as possible.

Chill & use a big glass.

Pour it in the glass so it fizzes up a bit, and swirl it while it's in the glass. This will help kill the carbonation a bit. Cooling the bottles will help with the gushing.

my barleywine ended up being so overcarbonated that the indents in the caps from the capper began to bulge out.
when i poured a 341 ml bottle it filled a one litre stein to the top with foam even when well chilled.
over the last two months i have carefully lifted the caps on each bottle, vented the pressure and re-crimped the caps. saturday was the fourth time for this procedure and i think my carbonation level is ok now. -it has also purged any o2 in the headspace

Open a couple and pour them into a pitcher to serve...your guests will never know...

God Emporer BillyBrew said:

And drink them as fast as possible.

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repeat above step until fingertips are numb and fat neighbor woman looks curiously inviting

Good luck.

BREW ON

You can try chilling them right down in the fridge and rleasing the excess pressure before recapping. I tried this with some severely over carbonated lager in 1.5L Grolsche bottles after a miscalculation with some dry beer enzyme. Unfortunately it was so over carbonated this wasnt practical, they were so bad they would virtualy empty themselves, continualy spewing foam right down to all but the last drop.
As I has nothing to loose I hooked up my co2 supply to my bottling bucket and gently pressurised it (until the lid buldged), after 10 mins I released the pressure by cracking the lid purging some o2. I did this about 3 times then poured all the bottles into the bucket, which took some time as I could get more than 3 bottles worth in at a time with all the foam. Eventualy I filled up the bucket, rebottled without priming and within a week I had perfectly carbonated lager without a hint of infection of oxidation.

That's wher ebottling in PET comes in handy, you can chill, then slowly untwist the cap till foam comes out then retwist and repeat. Plus they don't explode!

You can do a similar thing with a Grolsche bottle but these things were so overcarbonated I did this over a period of a month with no noticable improvement.

i had problems with overcarbing all my big beers. on the last batch, an imperial red, i decided i didn't want to dump the batch. i tried a low-tech solution that worked! SLIGHTLY pry each cap just enough to relieve the pressure, let sit for 30 minutes to an hour or so (there will be foam that runs down the sides - don't worry) then recap tightly when foaming has stopped. wait a couple weeks and viola! it saved two cases of beer for me and didn't cost a thing.

razyrsharpe said:

i had problems with overcarbing all my big beers. on the last batch, an imperial red, i decided i didn't want to dump the batch. i tried a low-tech solution that worked! SLIGHTLY pry each cap just enough to relieve the pressure, let sit for 30 minutes to an hour or so (there will be foam that runs down the sides - don't worry) then recap tightly when foaming has stopped. wait a couple weeks and viola! it saved two cases of beer for me and didn't cost a thing.

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I've done that once with success. Saved a good batch of raspberry stout.

(Wear safety glasses, long sleeves, and gloves!)