does head space in bottes affect carbonation?

Hi everyone,

I bottled 2 separate 5 gal. batches of beer a week ago, and wondering how much the head space left in the beer bottle has an affect on the carbonation (or anything else for that matter). I didnt have a bottling wand at the time, so I filled the bottles from the spigot. In the 12 oz stubby bottles, I tried to leave about an inch or so from the lip of the neck of the bottle. Some went a touch higher, some a touch lower. In the 22 oz bottles, I left more room, about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half.

My first batch was WAY overcarbonated so I want to avoid that, not sure if it was due to the head space, too much sugar, etc.

If I left too little room, is there anything I can do? Can I pop the caps, pour some out and re-cap? Or would that disturb the carb process?
Thoughts? Opinions?

Thanks!

I did a little research and it definitely does affect the beer. Some say a lot of head space and you can blow up a bottle, other sites say more head space less carbonation. What I am getting is that it does affect carbonation, which way I don't know.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/how-much-head-room-do-you-leave-top-your-bottles-105925/

http://***********/stories/article/indices/21-carbonation/1137-master-the-action-carbonation

Half way down the page there is a paragraph on it but contradicts the first link.

I keg, so I use a rig I made up to bottle from keg when I want to have some bottled. I always use the 3 piece wand, fill to top, pull it out....perfectly looks like a store bought head space.

RDWHAHB - yes, head space is definitely important. For those using bottle wants, it's generally recommended that you fill to the top of the bottle. When you remove the want the beer that was displaced by the want drops, and you get adequate headspace which amounts to roughly 1 to 1.5 inches from the cap. I wouldn't mess with bottles that have already been capped up, they should come out perfectly fine, provided you didn't fill right to the brim leaving no space at all...

For over carb, I would look into how the FG looked, and how much priming sugar. Those carb pills will really carb it up, I've never used them, but a friend gave me some samples and man I made sure the second one was over a sink when opened.