Who inverts bottles after a few days?

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tripeland

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Just wondering who does this? I don't bother with bulk priming and just put sugar directly into bottles. Turn the bottles upside down carefully a couple days after bottling to make sure the sugar/yeast is mixed around. Is it worth it? Is it potentially mixing oxygen in the headspace into the beer?
 
I do not turn the bottles upside down. I heard / read once that this would encourage oxidation in some way... But I do not know.

I do however pour the priming solution in the bucket first and then rack the beer on top of it. The way I am racking it, it creates a gentle circular movement in the beer and the solution mixes perfectly. I never had issues with under/over carbonated bottles.
 
When I bottled, I wouldn't invert them, but there times I would lay them on their side after a week. My thought was if I invert them, the yeast sediment may not be in the liquid beer. Laying them on the side kept the sediment wet and away from the bottle neck.
 
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I believe inverting the bottles is unnecessary, the yeast will do it's work regardless; keep in mind the yeast actively working on your priming sugar is mostly the one suspended in the beer (which it's always there in a greater or lesser degree, unless the beer is filtered and/or pasteurized), not just the one that settles at the bottom. Not that anything bad would happen; the yeast readily consume any oxygen originally left in the headspace (assuming you didn't cap on foam or flushed the bottle with CO2 prior to filling), the CO2 produced will certainly push it into the beer anyways, and yeast love oxygen. It is my understanding that some Belgian producers condition their bottles lying on the side, which makes sense considering the contact area between the beer and yeast is greater this way.
 
Sometimes a gentle swirl can help, but shouldn’t be necessary if you added enough sugar which is about

1/2 tsp per 12 oz bottle for the average ale
 
I carb all my bottles horizontally, and warm, with fresh yeast still in suspension either from the krausen I add, or still naturally in suspension when I just do speise. I'd never do a CC for a beer which goes into bottles from the primary.

007 is one yeast you might find yourself you want to turn upside down. But shouldn't be done to soon as this can oxidize the beer if it's sluggish in the start.

I've turned lots of beers upside down, usually done after a week or so. Mostly beers with english yeast strains.

A internet-friend of mine sent me an IPA in the mail which he had bottled just a day before or something (by mistake, wrong beer), it looked like a munich dunkel and was heavily oxidized. The pics of the beers he had stored at home were pale golden.
 
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Thanks for the replies guys. My normal procedure is to put sugar (either drops or powder) in the bottle and briefly flip once it's capped to 1) make sure the cap doesn't leak, and 2) mix the sugar around a bit. Then after a couple days I will again briefly flip the bottle. I can usually see the sugar solution lift off the bottom of the bottle when I do this. I don't splash it inside the bottle, it is just letting gravity do the mixing.

Maybe I will put some bottles aside without flipping and see if there is any oxidation difference.
 
I think I did the "invert all the bottles a couple of times" thing when I first started bottling.
Then I forgot, but didn't notice any difference, so I stopped doing it. Then I switched to kegs.
I don't think it's needed, I think there's likely enough going on that the yeast get to all the conditioning sugars eventually...

Cheers!
 
IMO, it is so much easier to prime the batch with sugar solution in the bottling bucket. To me even dropping a carbonation tab in each bottle is a PITA. I have done it only once when I ran short on corn sugar. I had some tabs in case I had a batch with too much for a keg.

I have never moved conditioning bottles at all until putting them in the fridge to chill. If you do invert them put them back upright quite a while before drinking them so that all the sediment compacts on the bottom of the bottle.
 
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