Update on a HUGE problem i faced

[razyrsharpe]

i posted earlier, a few months ago, about a problem i had brewing big beers. Specifically i was having over carbonation problems and i would like to thank everyone for the advice. But this post is not about solving a long term problem, but about how i saved the batch of Imperial Red Ale i thought i had to get rid of.

About 2-3 weeks after realizing that i was potentially sitting on top of 2 cases of hoppy papazian cocktail bombs, it struck me i did not want to just dump the beer. #1 it was expensive to create. #2 i'm no quitter! #3 i didn't want to break down in tears as i poured the beer out.

So i tried an experiment. i VERY SLIGHTLY used a bottle opener to release pressure on each bottle. a bit of pry and i let it sit for a couple of hours. some bottles foamed and ran down the sides of the bottle, but after all that stopped, i recapped tightly. here now a few months later and i have a KICK ASS batch of beer! it is probably a little more carbonated than style suggests it should be, but damn did i save my baby!! and it is delicious...

moral of this story? don't immediately give up on a problem. it took me several days to have the spark of imagination hit me to use the lowest tech solution i could think of.
:rockin::fro:

 

[muels]

Awesome! Glad you saved it. I seen a video of a guy doing that on YouTube. Crack them and recap them. Hopefully folks will see this and save some brew! Congrats and good info!

 

[day_trippr]

"hoppy papazian cocktail bombs"

Love this...

Cheers!

 

[Homercidal]

Sounds a bit like the first time I made soda. While the bottles were carbing up I kept asking myself, "How does the yeast know when to stop?"

Well, they don't. A few days later I was awakened by a loud bang and went to the bathroom to find a 10oz Coke bottle all over the place. The top of the bottle landed behidn the toilet. Root Beer running down the walls.

I covered with a blanket and carried the plastic tote full of Coke Grenades to the other bathroom and placed in bathtub and put a lid on it. Next day I did as you did, which is to gently and very slowly release the pressure. Once they were all purged I put them in the fridge and drank them quickly.

Now I keg.

 

[m00ps]

Good thing you got to them before they carbed more. I once had to get rid of 3 cases of bottle bombs. They would spontaneously go off so there was no way I was going to agitate them by individually picking them up.

So I suited up with multiple pairs of jeans, leather jacket, winter gloves, goggles & hardhat from work (wish I still had my old cup from football), and carefully put them into a big double walled cardboard box, stuck it on my deck and didnt touch it for over a year. No damn way I was going to try to release the pressure in those things. One would go off and it would set 4 more off with richochets

 

[BarrelAgedForrest]

Cool that you opted for this. I just assumed this was what everyone did to uncarb over carbed batches as my first batch was way over carbed and I have been doing this with all of them. If course the foam settles in the Pyrex bowl I do this in and I then enjoy it! No wasting and the bottles are saved!