Charlottesville Area Masters of Real Ale

Hey All,
So my English Ale is overcarbonated and doesn't show its true tastiness until the pint's sat for a tad at room temperature. I should've been more careful and slowly dialed the C02 up a bit moe gradually. Anyhow, here are my ideas on how to fix my blunder. Please let me know what you think.

My kegerator is currently set to 39 F and my English Ale is carbonated at 6.5 psi. I'm going to turn off the gas to the keg, bleed off the head pressure in the keg and jack the kegerator temperature up to 50F in hopes that some off the C02 dissolved in solution will re-balance in the empty head space thus lowering the carbonation level of the beer. Phew! That was a long sentence. Hopefully the higher ambient temperature and empty head push some of that C02 out of the beer. Or in the worst case scenario I can just pull a pint and let it sit idly for  20 minutes or so. Not ideal but que sera, sera.

I should've used a strategy I've employed in the past for "cask-style" and gently carbed beers: Push the C02 in at 5 psi for 2-3 days at a kegerator temp of 50 and then turn the CO2 off and serve. When the pressure drops, turn the CO2 on at !0 psi to fill the head space and then turn the CO2 off. The beer will then serve at 5 psi and get pushed out at 10 psi.

Let me know what you all think about my idea...

I think your idea sounds fine and should work, though I'm not sure that you necessarily need to raise the temp.  I would just bleed the head pressure.  Then kick the keg or something to coax some of the dissolved CO2 to come out.  Bleed, kick. Bleed, kick.  Repeat till tasty.  Good luck.  I look forward to trying some more at week's end.

Good thoughts. I just read over your "kick the keg" idea and ran downstairs and bled it, pulled the keg outta the fridge, shook it up, bled it twice more and popped it back in at 50F--an appropriate serving temperature for such a delicate brew. I'm sure my IPA would like it a bit colder but I can't please everyone. Anyhoo, at this rate it should be flat as a pancake in no time. Great idea Spidey!

it's just like a big soda can.  when it's kicked, some of the CO2 comes out of suspension.  in fact, you could probably shake it and pull even more CO2 out.

The quick and dirty way is to decouple the CO2 all together (assuming the popets work correctly).  Then, pour a couple beers with giant heads.  They'll settle out to about half a beer or less each before they get too warm.  Drink them and let the pressure across the whole keg equalize (or pour some more beer, as above).  If you keep it off CO2 and keep drafts flowing, it will decarbonate.  When the flow is lame, or the beer is too flat, you've hit a time to re-carbonate.

I know this works because I never have constant pressure on my kegs.  I do it this way because my kegs don't leak at all compared to the coupler-regulator-tube assembly, and also because my keg fridge is a much nicer model then my food fridge, so I can't bring myself to cut it.

Unnessesarilly long history of this method :

I bought kegs a couple 2-3 years ago and foraged up a laboratory grade regulator.  I was living in an attic with no fridge and no insulation.  Temperature was a Problem for everything fermentation related.  My hack solution was to make ice cubes out of whatever was on tap (one tray per brew) and pour the unrefrigerated, over-carbonated keg beer into the thickest available frozen glass mugs full of appropriate beer-ice.  The result amused the heck out of friends (beer ice cubes! holy crap!), tasted uh OK and was still way better than dealing with bottles.  Then, I bought a fridge on craigslist which turned out to be in all ways superior to the fridge supplied with my apartment.  So, I can't cut it, and I also can't stuff my steel 15lb CO2 tank which tares at 35lb and beer into the fridge without crowding.  My coupler-regulator-tubes also leak measurably and I am cheap.  The tank and kegs do not leak.  Logically, I keep the kegs in the fridge and the tank next to it.  I usually over-carbonate my beer somewhat and use oversized glasses (helps with the foam) and re pressurize every so many beers (4-7).  (in reality, the beer retains much less pressure than does the headspace, so I put positive pressurize on for every beer poured for the first 5-6 and then start to connect the leaky regulator assembly less often on an as-needed basis).  Towards the bottom of a keg, I try not to re-pressurize at all.  I'm unconvinced that I need constant pressure at this point.

Speaking of "kicking the keg" have you kicked the keg yet?

When I tasted the beer, I thought it was quite good.  You must have solved the problem already, because I think you should be quite happy with it.