Do you guys just get them a couple flips upside down each say…or do you give them a little shake as well to get the yeast off the bottom?
A flip or two every week for the first couple of weeks. You’ll want to be careful. Don’t shake them. If the beer splashes around too much in the bottle it could oxidize it. Probably a small to non-existant concern, but why temp fate.
Agree with the previous poster… I have a Megolodon Imperial redaly I,m doing that with now…It,ll be fine…cheers…Tank :cheers:
I agree- 1 flip once at the end of week1 and once at the end of week2.
Now here’s a devil’s advocate type Q- Beer saturated with CO2 in a sealed bottle, granted some O2 introduced at bottling, but new fermentation uses that. So how would oxidation happen? 
That’s what I thought as well J Maine. As long as one doesn’t slosh them around on the first couple of days, it shouldn’t be an issue. Headspace will be filled by CO2, but I wanted to cover all the possibilities.
I’m actually a little curious about something… whenever I bottle, after I fill a bottle, I place a cap on top (without crimping) then place the bottle on my countertop. By the time I get through five gallons, and start getting around to crimping, all of my bottles are “burping” on the countertop. As I understand it, co2 is coming out of solution, and expanding gasses are escaping the uncrimped caps. Am I essentially flushing out oxygen by letting them sit this way? Again, probably academic considering how small the headspace is, but I’ve been curious.
Speeding bottle carbonation is something I’ve never given thought to. I guess I’ve just never been in that much of a hurry. But it does make sense that working to keep the yeast better in suspension should make the carbonation process finish faster. Of course, you still have to wait for the yeast to flocculate out before you drink it, so it may not save you that much time overall.
As for the oxygen comments, I’ve always assumed that when you bottle condition, the majority of the O2 present gets scavenged by the yeast. That would certainly be true if you don’t have much yeast present when you bottle, and what is there will have to go through a initial growth phase to consume the sugar they suddenly find in solution around them. That may not be true if you bottle with a high concentration of yeast already present.
Uberculture, that makes sense to me. The beer will outgas if your kitchen is warmer than where you fermented the beer, and the CO2 will drive out the oxygen.
Neither. I hate doing unnecessary stuff.
I’m with Denny on this one. I’ve been bottling for 32 years and never flipped or shook a bottle. Never had a reason to that I know of. But, since I’ve never done it, it is possible I’ve been missing something.
I will do this too, I fill one and just set the cap on it. By the time I get through 5 gallons, I’ve got several burpers. I will then go back through in the same order to cap them. I don’t know how much CO2 it has expelled, but you can hear some of the caps bouncing. Then they sit upright. I don’t shake them, just let them sit. I usually fill one plastic soda bottle as well, and use it to gauge the activity inside.
Just leave them. If you have them at a decently warm temperature (mid 70’s), the yeast will be plenty active enough to stay in suspension and not crash down. If you can’t keep them warm enough, just let them sit a little longer maybe. I’ve done the flipping once for a couple bombers I was trying to rush along for a friend and it didn’t really do anything.
So it’s better to bottle condition/carb at slightly warmer temps than fermenting? I actually had my 1st 2 batches fermenting at around 68-70, and now have them bottled sitting in the basement at about 64-68, along with the 3rd batch.
The northern brewer site recommends between 70-75 degrees to fully carbonate in 2-3 weeks. They also do not recommend lower than 65 because they say it won’t be able to restart fermentation in the bottles. I think it will, but it may just take a little longer to reach the carbonation level you are trying to hit. I’ve been putting my bottles in a place that maintains about 70 degrees and have had no issues with carbonation in about 2-3 weeks (depending on a few other factors).
http://www.northernbrewer.com/connect/2 ... rbonating/The only time I turn them is when I use those fizz drops to get them all dissolved. I’ll also turn them over sometimes to see if they leak.
I have had a few problems with batches carbonating…the room i usually put my bottles in is between 67-68 usually…I tried my first off the topper after a week and it was flat as hell…so I have taken two 6 packs and moved them right in front of the heat register…see if that helps.
Aside from cranking up the furnace…what do you guys do to get a warm enough room for bottled beer?
I store my bottles in a Styrofoam lined box. When the temp. in the basement is below 70, which is most of the year, I put a heating pad set on low in the box. Usually only leave it in there for the 1st week. But if I decide to go two weeks, I rotate the position of the bottles to even temps. out. And as stated somewhere above, I do the invert-to-mix thing once at 1 week.
I’m going to do this…thank you for the idea!!!
