De-gassing before bottle priming?

[22415 Brewery]

A few weeks ago I managed to overcarb my first lager (ales for a few years now).

As I had a sample taste just as I had finished capping my bottles I could tell that it was already holding a fair amount of CO2. I normally batch prime and had already added it to the bucket anyway. As you can probably guess, the entire batch ended up overcarbed.

My question is, how can you gauge the amount of priming sugar/solution to add when the beer in question is already holding a variable amount of CO2? I know you could just keg it instead, but what if I don't have that capability? Would de-gassing the beer (such as de-gassing wine) be beneficial or could the agitation and introduction of O2 cause stability issues?

I've got another batch in primary right now and don't feel like messing that one up either.

 

[JuanMoore]

How did you calculate how much priming sugar to use? Using just the temperature, you can estimate the amount of CO2 in solution pretty accurately as long as the beer hasn't experienced a bunch of temperature swings post fermentation. Here's a handy priming calculator I've found to be pretty accurate.

 

[944play]

+1. Agitating beer makes baby Jesus cry and foam-positive compounds denature.

 

[22415 Brewery]

Aw shoot. I knew I went off somewhere. I didn't take into account the temperature, in my haste the temperature was quite a bit lower than it should have been for the amount of priming sugar I used.

If I had let it warm up to room temp then the amount of sugar I used would have been appropriate. It's ok this time, no bottle bombs and the few which I was able to pour into a glass prior to major gushing actually tasted quite good.

It's a shame though, especially on a lager.

I wouldn't want to upset baby jesus.