Too much carbonation

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jakebeer

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Milk chocolate stout that is bottle conditioned, tried to use the tasty brew grid so that it wouldn't be too carbonated, but it foams out of the bottle when opened.

It's a beer that could be "cellared" until the Fall, could I expect the carbonation to subside?

Besides using too much priming sugar, am I not letting it sit in secondary long enough (it's not a high gravity beer and was in secondary a month)?
 
How long has it been since you bottled it? It takes at LEAST three weeks for the yeast to produce the CO2 from the priming sugar and the beer to reabsorb the CO2. From my experience, stouts seem to take even longer. Unfortunately I threw out a batch that was probably good just because it was still foaming after a month. I'd let your beer sit for a while before trying it again
 
Thanks, did not think about the reabsorption... Its been in the bottles for approximately 3 weeks, so it sounds like it needs time.
 
you might want to look into un-capping the bottles just a tad, letting some pressure out, then re-capping. best to have the bottles out on a counter for 24 hours before doing this, and not moving them after the procedure is done... essentially limiting how much shaking goes on either side of the procedure.
 
In my experience with this type of thing, what you have there is the beginning of a bottle bomb. They are great if the zombie apocalypse comes but not so much for your drinking pleasure.

Seriously, if when you open the cap they start foaming like cray, that is because CO2 is leaving solution at a rapid pace causing the proteins in the beer to form bubbles and carry your precious beer out of the bottle. If this was just compressed CO2 in the head space of the bottle, it wouldn't foam like crazy.

Fortunately, this is really easy to fix. Just vent the bottles a little by prying them up slowly until you hear a hissing sound. If I'm right, shortly after you begin hearing the hissing sound you will see bubbles forming inside the beer, rising to the surface and forming foam. Just before the foam reaches the cap, release the pressure you are placing on the cap and the cap will return to its normal shape, sealing the beer again.

If you don't do this and just let the bottles ride, I would at least encourage you to put something under the bottles to soak/catch liquid and a blanket over them to prevent schrapnel from injuring anyone. You'll be happy you did when your making a sandwich one day and you hear a loud series of explosions that sound eerily like a drive by shooting.
 
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