Slight over carbonation

I've searched these forums on this topic and didn't quite find what I was looking for. I've brewed 2 batches so far and they've gone great, but I feel like after bottle conditioning my beer is just a tad over carbonated- I'm using the recommended 5 oz. It's not a consistency problem either, they all seem to be equally carbonated. Sometimes I find myself aggressively pouring a beer twice to release more carbonation.

Has anyone else felt this way about the common 5 oz per 5 gallon measurement? Perhaps I should back off to 4 or 4.5 oz?

 

Search Google Images for "Beer nomograph" and download a copy for yourself.

Or follow this link to see it in use:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11-4.html

Using the nomograph you find your fermentation temp and draw a line to the desired CO2 volume (which is dictated by style guidelines). Extrapolate the line out to the last chart on the right and you will find the amount of primer to add for a 5 gallon batch.

Hope this helps!

Edited to add: Temperature can play a role as well. If your beer is cold cold cold when you pour it - it may lack a bit of carbonation.

 

5 oz is a rule of thumb, but every beer style is carbonated differently. If you want to get technical you'll want to start thinking in terms of volumes of CO2 when it comes to carbing up your beer.

Say you are preparing the priming sugar for a Kolsch... you'll want about 2.4 to 2.7 volumes of CO2 and using a nomograph you can see that you'll need about 3.8 to 4.6 oz of sugar and stored at 75 F...

An English bitter only has about 0.8 to 1.3 volumes of CO2 which is about 1 oz to 1.5 ounces of sugar and stored at 75 F.

You can also see that temperature affects carbonation so you may adjust the temperature instead of the amount of sugar used....

 

Thanks guys, really helpful stuff. I think for my american amber ale coming up I will drop down to around 4 oz.