Over carbing fixed by cooling?

[Schark]

Long story short, I bottled my lager three weeks ago and opened one last night to see how it was. It shot out of the bottle. Not far, only a few inches, but shot out none the same.

Not being overly familiar with lagers, this might be normal, but my first thought was to put all the bottles into the fridge to cool them and slow the carb process. But I also heard that cold beer absorbs CO2 better and quicker. Can anyone confirm this? Will refrigerating my beer help get the CO2 to a proper level and avoid any possible bombs?

This might be moot since they're all going into the fridge for lagering anyway, but I'm curious.

Thanks!

 

[Revvy]

Openning any homebrew warm may result in gushing, not because the beer is over carbed, but because the cold helps to absorb the co2 into solution. That's why we recommend chilling the beer AT LEAST 48 hours but even better a week before serving them.

 

[jgourd]

My first instinct would be that you either (1) bottled with too much priming sugar and your beer is over-carbonated; or (2) you have some sort of infection. It is true that, particularly early on in the carbonation process and at room temperature, you will have more carbonation in the head space than in the beer. Sometimes foaming occurs when you open up such a brew and cooling it down for a few days works wonders. But in your case, I'm more inclined to say infection. I'd put a bottle in the fridge for a week and check it to see.

 

[Schark]

Ooohh. I was under the impression that carbing them at room temp and serving them at room temp was a good way to detect all the subtle flavours.

Thanks Revvy, this is good to know!