Sooo...overcarbed bottles. Any suggestions?

[mumblecrunch]

So I lamented in a few places on the board about the beer I made with the Conan yeast and how it was a failure because clearly the malt bill couldn't stand up to the yeast and it ended up without any body. I couldn't understand that given that the recipe was a Mill St. Tankhouse Ale clone and there should have been plenty of body will that malt bill. I also never mentioned that out of the 40 or so bottles I drank that a few of them actually tasted really good or that a few bottles I gave away yielded positive reviews. I couldn't make heads or tails of it, I just accepted that I made some beer that wasn't very good. Kinda bugged me that I didn't feel like I really knew why though.

Fast forward to last night when I cracked the first of my most recently bottled batch, an all-cascade pale ale (Yooper's House Pale Ale from HBT). It had the same problem as the Conan/Tankhouse: no body at all. Now I had tasted this beer when I bottled it and I thought at the time that it was going to be good. Plenty of hop aroma and flavor and pretty good mouthfeel both before and after the priming sugar solution was added. I couldn't imagine why two weeks later that would all have gone away.

And then I saw this post by Rubbertoe today. Overcarbed? Astringent? THAT'S the word I've been looking for...aw maaaaan.

Sure enough, If I open a bottle of this beer, shake the shit out of it, and do my best to let off the gas without spraying foam everywhere, the beer goes from half-ass to really quite tasty. But it's really annoying. Are there any tried and true tricks for knocking extra gas off an overcarbed bottled batch other than shaking and pouring hard?

[GuingesRock]

You're a smart and articulate guy Aaron. I think real ale might be the way to go, or at least aim for 1 vol. carbonation which is similar. I dislike the north American levels of carbonation.

I add some cara-pils/dextrin for a bit of body, that way I don't have to worry about it, some might disagree or say that's amateur.

[mumblecrunch]

You're a smart and articulate guy Aaron.

Why them's fightin' words you limey basta...oh...wait. Come on, man, don't be nice on the Internet: nobody's expecting it and no one has any idea how to react

I add some cara-pils/dextrin for a bit of body, that way I don't have to worry about it, some might disagree or say that's amateur.

While the malt bill on the Yooper's Pale Ale had no Cara-pils it had a half-kilo of Crystal malts. And the Tankhouse Clone had 1/2lb of the Cara-pils and some crystal besides.

I've come to understand that my real issue is that I'm not adequately measuring my final volume and applying appropriate priming sugar. I'm basing my sugar calculation on calculated yield, which for those two batches in particular was significantly lower than expected. I have been pretty laisez faire (I believe that's French for "slack-assed") about volumes and worried more about gravity readings. But as long as I'm bottling I'm going to have to be significantly more careful and start adding my priming sugar to my bottling bucket after I've measured my final volume (and temperature) instead of racking onto the priming sugar.

And while I admit that I am intrigued by the idea of real ale (and having the Big Spruce Cereal Killer Stout from the hand pumps at Stillwell was a truly eye-opening experience), I do like a well-carbed North American style Pale or Amber/Red ale. Apparently there is a limit to that though...

[CorneliusAlphonse]

I think real ale might be the way to go, or at least aim for 1 vol. carbonation which is similar.

that\s not really what he was asking

for knocking the carb out, just pour half of it in a glass, swirl pretty vigorously - will lessen the carb level a good bit. repeat if not.

[GuingesRock]

A bit headachey this morning, but very interesting stuff about carbonation and mouthfeel. I don't know what carbonic acid bite tastes like, need to figure that one out.

[Celiacbrew]

A bit headachey this morning, but very interesting stuff about carbonation and mouthfeel. I don't know what carbonic acid bite tastes like, need to figure that one out.

It tastes like soda water.

[GuingesRock]

Thanks.

Running beer through a coffee filter takes out all the carbonation. You could filter half a glass or more and top it up with unfiltered.

[pet lion]

Pour beer into a glass. Pour into another glass. Pour back into first glass. Repeat until enough CO2 has been knocked out of your beverage.

[mumblecrunch]

Thanks gang. It's not as overcarbed as I originally thought; a good hard pour into an oversized glass is enough to knock off the excess (pouring back if there's still too much). It's a bit fiddly getting it just right, but it works.

Next time I'm erring on the side of slightly undercarbing.