Carbonation curve

[Rick500]

Has anyone seen a graph of the average amount of carbonation that occurs vs. time after capping bottles?

The reason I ask is that I've once again managed to way overcarb some beer, and I'm trying to decide when I should pop them open and recap them, in order to release the excess pressure but still allow enough time (and sugar) for them to carb back up to a reasonable level.

I bottled twelve 12-ounce bottles from my batch and kegged the rest. Unfortunately, I meant to bottle 18 bottles rather than 12. I calculated my priming sugar amount based on 18 bottles and put that amount into enough beer for 12 bottles. So rather than carbing to 2.4 volumes, they're going to be over 3 if I don't take some action.

I guessed at opening them up this evening and recapping (after 4 days in the bottle), but I really have no idea if that will leave me anywhere near the 2.4 volumes I want. I suspect that carb level vs. time is not a linear thing.

 

[Revvy]

I've never heard or seen anything like that, nor do I think in terms of natural carbonation in the bottles, could it be created. There's just too many variables; size of bottle, yeast used, amount of sugar, type of sugar, and every grain used in every recipe used, in every possible combination, carb/condition temp, amout of residual co2 already present at bottling time, yeast cell count, and the list goes on.

I'm sure that there is data like that available for force carbing, but just the fact that in bottle carbonation/conditioning we are dealing with living micro-organisms- Yeast, is a curveball in itself.

 

[Rick500]

Yeah, I figured that to be the case.

I guess I'll just pop one open tonight and make my best estimate of how carbed it currently is vs. how carbed I calculated that it would have eventually been if I hadn't opened it, and make a determination from there.

Thanks for the reply.

 

[JeffersonJ]

Wrote a post in the wrong thread. How can you delete a post?

 

[Hardleft]

If you open one and find the carbonation to be good, couldn't you just throw them all in the fridge? The cold temps would slow down the carbonation process to almost nothing, so you wont have to worry about bottle bombs or crazy amounts of foam.