PLEASE HELP! Too much priming sugar?!

[BlackDogBrewhouse]

Hi everyone. First off, I know other people have posted similar questions..I promise I went through them, but I wasn't confident with how to adjust for my situation, so I needed to start a new thread to ask. My apologies.

I brewed a 5 gallon batch...ended with pretty much exactly 5 gallons. I legged half, bottled half (to give to a friend). The problem is, I forgot to cut the amount of sugar in half for the bottling, and realized it as I capped the last bottle.

I've seen the solution seems to be to uncap and recap. My main question is: when? Too soon, and it defeats the point. Too late, and...well, I'll be cleaning up beer from the bombs.

I bottled exactly 2.5 gallons with 4 oz of sugar. Should I wait a week and uncap/recap? Two weeks?

Any suggestions or help is so greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[chuckcomm]

I guess you could always uncap and gently pour back into bottling bucket then siphon whats in keg into that letting it swirl at the bottom to mix then rebottle. Whatever you do will be somewhat of a pita.

 

[azscoob]

Hmm, I always just bottle off the keg after carbonating, no fuss and it goes rather quickly.... I don't have a bottling bucket so I'm sort of stuck bottling that way, never had an issue even with competition beer bottles

 

[MaxStout]

I don't know what your ferm temps were, but 4oz into 2.5 gallons should give roughly 4 volumes of CO2. Most American style beer bottles can contain a max of about 3 volumes.

Typical bottle carbing takes approx. 3 weeks, but I don't know if the process is linear. The yeast may do the bulk of their priming work closer to the beginning. Wait a week, then recap. Wear eye protection, just in case.

 

[azscoob]

I don't know what your ferm temps were, but 4oz into 2.5 gallons should give roughly 4 volumes of CO2. Most American style beer bottles can contain a max of about 3 volumes.

Typical bottle carbing takes approx. 3 weeks, but I don't know if the process is linear. The yeast may do the bulk of their priming work closer to the beginning. Wait a week, then recap. Wear eye protection, just in case.

And gloves too...... I suffered a severed tendon in my finger due to an exploding glass bottle. My finger doesn't straighten completely to this day.

 

[flars]

The active fermentation when fermenting five gallons can be over in three days. Start releasing the excess CO2 tomorrow. Lay a quarter across the bottle caps so they don't crease. Just lift the edge until you hear some CO2 escape, then recap immediately. You will need to do this three to five times over a few days.

 

[BlackDogBrewhouse]

Awesome, thanks for the advice all.

 

[brew_darrymore]

I am in the same position. 5 days ago I bottled 5 gallons of oatmeal stout. I had some leftover dark candi syrup, so I decided to prime with that. I read the instructions on their website on how much to use and went ahead to prime. 3 days later I found a different document on the same website suggesting to use far less syrup. Too late, I had already primed! So, what I did is I uncapped all bottles completely and had them recapped. I use only swing-top bottles, so it didn't take that long to go through the whole batch.

I was surprised how much carbonation there was in just 3 days! I am not planning to uncap them again, as I fear the bottles might get undercarbed. Will report about carbonation level when I open the first bottle in 3 weeks or sooner, if I get a bottle bomb

 

[CUrchin]

Get some soda bottles, uncap a couple bottles and fill the soda bottles with them. When the soda bottle gets very firm, uncap the remaining bottles to release the pressure. Gloves AND safety glasses, please.

 

[slym2none]

The active fermentation when fermenting five gallons can be over in three days. Start releasing the excess CO2 tomorrow. Lay a quarter across the bottle caps so they don't crease. Just lift the edge until you hear some CO2 escape, then recap immediately. You will need to do this three to five times over a few days.

I agree. I believe the extra time is needed for the CO² to dissolve into solution, i.e., be absorbed into the beer.

 

[brew_darrymore]

I am in the same position. 5 days ago I bottled 5 gallons of oatmeal stout. I had some leftover dark candi syrup, so I decided to prime with that. I read the instructions on their website on how much to use and went ahead to prime. 3 days later I found a different document on the same website suggesting to use far less syrup. Too late, I had already primed! So, what I did is I uncapped all bottles completely and had them recapped. I use only swing-top bottles, so it didn't take that long to go through the whole batch.

I was surprised how much carbonation there was in just 3 days! I am not planning to uncap them again, as I fear the bottles might get undercarbed. Will report about carbonation level when I open the first bottle in 3 weeks or sooner, if I get a bottle bomb

Just a quick update on my "supposedly overcarbed batch" (see above):

After 8 weeks of bottle conditioning, the beer is undercarbed.

My conclusion is that:
- since I opened and re-capped all bottles on day 3, and
- since the beer is now undercarbed,

it appears that most of the CO2 was produced in the first 3 days of bottle conditioning. Since I opened and re-capped all bottles, all of that initial CO2 got released on day 3, which led to an undercarbed batch.

Well, it's a stout, so carbonation is not that important anyway. At least, I didn't get any bottle bombs!