Any Solutions for Excessive Bottle Carbonation?

I bottled a pale ale 11 days ago with 3/4 Cup of Priming Sugar (for 49 bottles worth of beer), and left it in my brew closet at 70º. After work yesterday I was curious as to how it was doing so I took a bottle and put it in the freezer for a little bit, then stuck it in the fridge for an hour or so. To make a long story short, it was way overcarbed. I mean, like alkaseltzer fizzy. Could this be a product of the rapid chilling? I have only made one other pale ale and the same thing happened - it got overcarbed! What is going on here?
What can I do to fix this? Could I empty the bottles into a keg or something?

I don't understand why none of my other batches get overcarbed when using the standard 3/4 Cup priming sugar, but my pale ales are like bottle rockets????

Yeah, let them sit for at least 2 more weeks then chill them for at least 48 hours...and then tell me if they are over carbed...you opened it at a point where although there was co2 present in the headspace, it hadn't fully integrated into solution. In other words it wasn't carbed yet.

How long did you chill the bottle before tasting it? The longer you chill it the more it will pull it into solution as well.

But generally we recommend a minimum of three weeks at 70 to carb and condition most average gravity beers. Some take longer, weeks or months even.

I bet that if you leave your bottles alone for another 2.5 weeks minimum, then chill a couple down for at least 48 hours...your beer will be carbed just fine.

More info about carbing and conditioning, can be found here, there is a video that shows EXACTLY what just happened when you opened your bottle prematurely.

Of Patience and Bottle Conditioning. With emphasis on the word, "patience."

Revvy, that was an awesome video and lots of great info!

The thing is that my sample last night was not flat with just a lot of head. It was like alka seltzer effervescent. The sample was cold because I had put it in the freezer for like 15 mins, then in the fridge for another hour or so. When I popped the cap, there was a huge hiss too. Lots of head like in the video, but the beer was not flat.

macabra11 said:

Revvy, that was an awesome video and lots of great info!

The thing is that my sample last night was not flat with just a lot of head. It was like alka seltzer effervescent. The sample was cold because I had put it in the freezer for like 15 mins, then in the fridge for another hour or so. When I popped the cap, there was a huge hiss too. Lots of head like in the video, but the beer was not flat.

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15 minutes in freezer and an hour in the fridge, is not the same as 48 hours to a week in the fridge. We're talking about pulling the co2 back into solution, that's not the same as makign liquid cold......

I have a couple bottles in the fridge chilling down now. I will test it this weekend to see if there is any difference. The rest of the bottles are still at 70º aging, so I will be able to kind of keep track of the progress like in that video.

I just had the same thing happen to me tonight. I took a 1.5 week bottle and quick chilled in the freezer for 30 minutes and then the fridge for another 15 or so. When I opened the beer it was really, really carbonated to the point of being tingly. I know it can take a while to carb, but this was overcarbonated at 1.5 weeks.

Also something else I noticed, that I didnt see anyone touch on. You stated that you used 3/4 cup priming sugar, I would never use a measured amount. Use a Carbonation Chart to calculate the weight of sugar you will need for the total amount of beer you have.

macabra11 said:

I have a couple bottles in the fridge chilling down now. I will test it this weekend to see if there is any difference. The rest of the bottles are still at 70º aging, so I will be able to kind of keep track of the progress like in that video.

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It wasn't "overcarbed" it is that at 1.5 weeks, and only a little time in the bottle, the co2 hadn't fully integrated into solution. It hadn't settle into the correct level of carbonation. There's a peak point where the co2 hasn't maxed out the headspace and been forced into solution. That's also one of the reasons often people who decide to bottle in growlers have them explode, because even though they are rated for already carbed beer they usually cannot handle that "peak moment."

The video in this link https://www.homebrewtalk.com/1030387-post8.html shows exactly what is going on with your beer at this point.

It's not over carbed, you didn't do anything wrong even measuring by volume instead of weight is fine, that's not why you are foaming.

There's nothing wrong with your beer, it's only "operator error" I suggest waiting the full minimum three weeks at 70 that we suggest, AND chilling your beer in the fridge for at least 48 hours. You will find your beer will more than likely be perfectly carbed, and balanced. The reason it foamed is because you are impatient, not there's anything wrong.

Revvy said:

that's not why you are foaming

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Revvy, you're awesome for the amount of time you take to give responses on here.

You keep referring to the the foaming aspect of premature aging, but I think the piece that your responses aren't addressing is the fact that there is a TON of CO2 in suspension in the beer. It sounds like OPs situation and mine are the same in that we quick chilled the beer and found the beer to be ridiculously carbonated. I also used 3/4 priming sugar added to bottling bucket and then racked beer over the sugar and let the swirling of the siphon mix the solution.

If it is going to be OK in another couple weeks that's fine, but now I'm just curious why there is so much CO2 in the beer. Does flash chilling the beer change the chemistry of the beer in a way that makes the CO2 effervesce more? Like the OP, my beer was alka seltzer like. I agree it needs more time in the bottle; I'm just curious why the beer acts this way.

Once in a while I get a batch that has some fizzy bottles...even after many weeks of aging. I've always figured it was due to not getting a bottle or two clean enough. I'm very careful about soaking and sterilizing the bottles before adding the starsan. The one process point that is full of assumption though is the addition of the priming sugar. I usually use DME for priming. When I mix and boil DME and 2 cups of water and boil for 10 minutes, it's very, very sweet and more viscous than the beer (fermented wort). I always assume that the priming sugar water gets stirred into solution during the racking, but I'm careful to not agitate the beer to introduce oxygen. So, how can I know that there won't be higher concentrations of priming sugar in some bottles? I bottle from the spigot in the Ale Pail. If the whole batch is fizzing, which I've never seen, then other things are at work, but do you really think it's safe to assume that the priming sugar is getting uniformly stirred into solution?

NorCalAngler said:

Revvy, you're awesome for the amount of time you take to give responses on here.

You keep referring to the the foaming aspect of premature aging, but I think the piece that your responses aren't addressing is the fact that there is a TON of CO2 in suspension in the beer. It sounds like OPs situation and mine are the same in that we quick chilled the beer and found the beer to be ridiculously carbonated. I also used 3/4 priming sugar added to bottling bucket and then racked beer over the sugar and let the swirling of the siphon mix the solution.

If it is going to be OK in another couple weeks that's fine, but now I'm just curious why there is so much CO2 in the beer. Does flash chilling the beer change the chemistry of the beer in a way that makes the CO2 effervesce more? Like the OP, my beer was alka seltzer like. I agree it needs more time in the bottle; I'm just curious why the beer acts this way.

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You're missing the point, and poindexter explains it really clear in the video, at least I think so...the co2, hasn't gotten to the point where it actually absorbed and held in suspension in the fluid. That is when the beer is truly carbonated.

Fizzy, or gushing, and actual carbonation are two entirely different animals.


If your beer were TRULY carbonated it wouldn't be doing it like that. (I often call this situation, "newb carbonation" or "false carbonation."

If you look at the video, that even though the beer foams in pour number two, the beer is still not at the point where there are bubbles actually present in the beer. You know like when you pour a highly effervescent macro lagers how besides the head there is nice pretty bubbles dancing in the glass? That's truly carbonation, the co2 is being released from the beer.

The point of cooling the beer for a good period of time, is that it helps to draw the co2 into solution. But it is not something that is done in an hour in the freezer, or a couple hours in the fridge, it's something that takes a couple of days to do. The longer in the cold, the better it is.

And before that you are going to get exactly what has happened here.

If Macabra had waited at least 3 whole weeks, and had chilled his beer for at least 2 days, he more than likely wouldn't have needed to start this thread.

There is rarely anyone on here posting this same issue who has done what was suggested above. It is almost always exactly the same situation, they 99% of the time do exactly what macabra did. And about 99% of the time, they come back after that period usually saying that their beer is fine.

We say these things for a reason, "three weeks at 70," "chill for at least 2 days" not to yank any new brewer's chains....

It's simply how it works, it's a natural process where there are living micro organisms are involved.

Until you pass through the "wait 3 weeks and chill 2 days," phase and tell us what's happening then, we can't truly know what's going on. I'm giving you the experiences of other's on here, who have gone through the same issue.....But until you do that with your beer, what I or anyone else on here is saying is mere speculation. You could also have an infection.....but until you rule out the "It's too soon" phase, we can't go on. We're in effect at an impasse till then.[/i]

It's like with green beer, until you've passed a reasonable amount of time, to rule out green beer, then you can't know if there is actually a problem or not.

So rather than speculate, just do what it suggested, and then we'll see....

I watched the video twice and it demonstrates more how CO2 will go from headspace into the liquid. Through most of his early pours he shows that there is very little bubble action in the beer. In our examples there is a ton of bubble action in the beer.

I think you addressed it in your post. So beer will actually "hang on" to the CO2 when it is fully conditioned while prematurely aged beer more easily lets go of the CO2, thus making it effervesce? I was under the impression that the term "in suspension" simply meant there was CO2 in the liquid rather than in the headspace, but your explanation is that there may be CO2 in the liquid, but it isn't truly settled into the beer yet.

I fully plan on waiting the recommended period at the recommended temps. This questioning is more about understanding the conditioning process and the transformations that occur in the beer. Since this is my first batch I've bottled I opened two in a week and a half to see how the beer reacts through the conditioning process.

Update after talking to OP over PM and checking my beer tonight. I definitely have uneven sugar distribution. I think my main issue is that I only boiled my sugar in 1 cup of water, making a much thicker solution. When I checked my bottles today I noticed some have bulging caps where the capper puts the circular crimp mark on top. Sure enough these bottles are way too carbed while others are still flat. I'm hoping that enough sugar went into the other bottles to carb them up in a couple weeks.