Too much priming sugar

[MichaelBrock]

I bottled an AG dunkelweizen this evening. I was ill prepared (I really shouldn't try these things after a day's work) and did not have enough dextrose for priming. So I made up the difference with DME....long story short, I think I added too much DME & dextroses. Assuming that the bottling volumes are cumulative (based individually on the weight of dextrose and DME added) I'm looking at a carbonation level of about 5 volumes.

I'm thinking that I might let it sit for a week, remove the caps, and re-cap to prevent bottle bombs. If I did that, any idea how much carbonation that would leave me? At this point obviously I'm not concerned with carbonating to style.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[medusa1066]

Provide your volume of beer and weight of DME and dextrose so we can calculate your carbonation. Did you bulk prime, or prime each bottle individually? I think if you remove the caps, you are shooting in the dark as to what will happen. You might consider RDWHAHB.

 

[MichaelBrock]

It turned out to be 5.25 gallons of beer. I bulk primed, adding 180 grams of dextrose and 120 grams of light DME. I checked 3 or 4 priming calculators and although there was a surprising amount discrepancy between them, it seems to roughly be 3 volumes from the dextrose and 2 volumes from the DME, putting me at about 5 volumes.

I read a post in another forum stating that the regular 12 ounce brown beer bottles can only take 3 volumes of carbonation, which I find hard to believe. It that were true no body would be bottling hefeweizens. But can they take 5 volumes? If I were take the caps off at say 1 week and immediately replace with a new cap how much carbonation would I lose really? I would expect the carbonation in the liquid to take a while to diffuse out, longer than the time the bottle was uncapped. I'm definitely spending to much time fretting over this.

 

[MichaelBrock]

Lacking further input, I think this is my current plan. Assuming (and it's a total guess) that bottle carbonation is a fairly linear process and takes 3 weeks, I'm going to open all of the bottles at 4 days into conditioning and let them sit a while to de-gas. Then I'll recap. If the process is indeed linear then that would leave me with 80% of the carbonation and 4 volumes.

Total crackpot idea?