Agitating your Bottles to improve carbination?

Hi,
I just brewed up a ESB and have just bottled a 6 Gallon batch into grolsch bottles with dextrose. Last batch I did didn't carbonate all that well. I've made sure to mix in the dextrose well this time.

I've seen a few things here and there stating that agitating your bottles during carbonation helps. Can anybody verify this? Can anybody provide some links to articles as to why this helps?

Or is this just another one of those brewing superstitions?

Thanks for the great advice. Looking forward to many more brews!
Stu

It depends how you carbonate.

If you use sugar in the bottle, carb tabs or cooper drops a definate yes. Do so every 2-3 days for about a week.

If you bulk prime by boiling 5oz of cornsugar in water, add that to the bottle bucket, then syphon to bucket while mixing and then bottle then I would have to say no. One caveat is that you need to gently stirr on occasion as it fills during syphoning and bottling.

BTW - if you get a pack of sugar in a kit, don't try to measure out 3/4 of a cup. If its 5 oz us the whole thing. A few of the noobs at my HB club were throwing away what they thought was excess sugar. 5oz by wt is usually right on the mark. Its easy to take 5 oz of sugar pour it in a cup and think you have too much. If you tamp it down it will level close to 3/4 cup. There is almost 1/4 cup of settling that can occurr. Always weigh your sugar.

The exception might be on lagers than are real clear w/ very little yeast present in the bottle either in suspension or settled. I'd say this is fairly unusual though.

No not a superstition, it works...

What it does is lifts the dormant yeasts of the bottom of the bottle and puts them back into suspension, and rerouses them so that they can eat any unfermented sugar, which of course produces co2 , which causes carbonation.....

If the bottles got too cool, the yeast often floculates down to the bottom before doing it's job, so this gets them up and working again.

Ever notice how you often get some fermentation/co2 production when you rack the beer from primary to secondary? Same principle.

The easiest and gentlest way is to lay them on their side and roll them back and forth a couple of times...Though other people just turn them end to end.

Looks like you have already figured out the part about mixing well. Here is some more carbonation advice.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=55739
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=59954

Ok, beers up. In a word, this works. Best carbed beer I've had by FAR, nice lacing, best looking head.

All Good... I just put a Hef/Blue moon style down in the primary.... I'll be doing it for this as well!

Cheers
Stu

stubish said:

Ok, beers up. In a word, this works. Best carbed beer I've had by FAR, nice lacing, best looking head.

All Good... I just put a Hef/Blue moon style down in the primary.... I'll be doing it for this as well!

Cheers
Stu

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I think the beer you made is what gave it a nice lacing and head. rolling the bottles only speeds up the carbonation process..

Jay

Sorry but how would you Agitat the bottles? Gently give them a shake every so often? Sorry for such a noob question.

fishnfever said:

Sorry but how would you Agitat the bottles? Gently give them a shake every so often? Sorry for such a noob question.

Click to expand...

Lay them on their side on a table and roll them back and forth a couple times.

Revvy said:

Lay them on their side on a table and roll them back and forth a couple times.

Click to expand...

Thanks!! I am going to be making brew in a few days. This brew calls for adding sugar in the bottles, so I will give this method a try.