How Do You Rack to Avoid Sediment?

I have a Fermentech Auto Siphon 1/2" racking cane that I use to transfer fermented beer from the carboy to keg. The problem is that I usally end up sucking yeast/trub off the bottom during the transfer if not uber-careful.

Auto Siphon - 1/2" racking cane : Northern Brewer

The racking cane does have a small foot to keep it off the absolute bottom but an inch of sediment, it is ineffective. Are there any DIY mods for this thing?

What do you do or use to keep from sucking up some of the sediment?

I just slowly lower my siphon to keep it just below the surface of the liquid. Once I get near the bottom, I gently tip my bucket/carboy to make the liquid collect near the bottom of my siphon. I primary for 4 weeks, so the cake in the bottom doesn't even budge.

...and I tip my carboy right away, 1st thing on bottling day, so it has a chance to settle. I just prop up one side slightly by resting it on a cutting board. Then exactly as Frito says - keep siphon in the middle, then lower slowly.

I like getting every last drop, so a little bit of sediment is inevitable. I just let it settle for a few minutes in my bottling bucket - this also gives time for the priming sugar to mix.

And if a little sediment ends up in the bottles, who cares, it'll just drop to the bottom of the bottle.

Avoid siphoning it as best you can. It's not the end of the world if you get a little.

I have the same problem. My attention wanders, I look up at the tubing and it's sucking trub. I've been thinking about one of these:



Siphon Stem Spring Clip - High Gravity

Do find the sediment/yeast gives you off flavors when pouring?

I keg so everything settles. I swear I can taste the sediment and not sure what to do about it. The dip tube is at the bottom of the keg, in the dimple.

You partially answered your question yourself. You need to be careful.

Fritobandito added a good suggestion. Tip the carboy. That will deepen the beer it the corner and make it easier to get the most beer out.

If you don't have one, get one of these: 1/2" Auto-Siphon Clamp : Northern Brewer It makes siphoning so much easier.

Lastly, RDWHAHB. I always get a little trub transferred. I fell it is pretty much unavoidable. I bottle and almost all of it stays in the bottom of the bottling bucket.

It's just a matter of being careful, and stop siphoning when you hit trub. I have some little clamps to hold the racking cane for me. I always start in the middle of the beer, and lower the racking cane as the level of the beer lowers. Never start at the bottom, which stirs up and suspends sediment. Then as the level of the beer lowers, I lower the racking cane. It only takes a minute more to be careful, and then you have sediment free beer in the keg.

It's easiest to do if you use highly flocculant yeast (S04 forms a concrete slab under the beer!) and if you start with a beer that's really clear to begin with.

Do you get off flavors if sucking up the sediment?

All of my brews have a very similar flavor, more pronounced when burping. For the life of me, I cannot figure out what it is.

I ferment @ 60 degrees (f) for a minimum of two weeks then bring up the temperature to 70 for another two weeks. I rack into a keg (and see some sediment transfer) and the same off flavor is always there.

The kegged beer in a glass is clear and doesn't look yeasty.

My water is filtered through carbon and I use camden to drive off the clorine/cloramines. No matter what I do, the same flavor is persistent. Not necessarily a bad flavor, just one that I cannot pinpoint.

Maybe a slight tannin taste; sharp but not too sharp. It is driving me nutz.
I can only assume it is some of the trub off the bottom.

Myself I rack to my carboy and rack again to another carboy 2 weeks later so then there is less trub

More pronounced when burping, ha! Do you dry hop, if so, the heat in stomach acid will interact w the hops and give you the hoppy-burps. What are your recipes, extract, AG, partial mash, etc. If you are an extract brewer, you could be getting that mythical extract twang, or some carmelization from the LME/DME...

I ferment for 4-6 weeks in stainless conicals. About week 5 I start harvesting the yeast cake from the bottom valve. The upper valve is used to take gravity readings. By week 6 the majority of the trub has been run off, I can put C02 to the conical and push the beer from the upper valve into kegs.

Sorry for the new brewer question, and if it is the wrong place for it, but when bottling does anyone have any tips to prevent getting sediment other than what has already been mentioned (ex, transferring to a secondary before bottling, more time in primary, etc.)

Bottles will always have a line of sediment in the bottom of each bottle. This is a necessary evil since the beer gets carbonated by consuming added sugars in the bottle. The yeast cells have no where else to go but the bottom of the bottle. If you are bottle conditioning, and you don't have some sediment in your bottle, then you would not have carbonated beer.

The easiest way around this? Delve into kegging. Other than that just be careful with the pour.

A buddy of mine suggested using a cheese cloth over the siphon tube to avoid excess sludge if you accidentally dip too low. Not sure how well it works but it might help from clogging up the tubing.

However, there is no way to avoid having yeast in naturally carbed brews. Like the post above, yeast is required to eat the priming sugar to carb your beer. There will always be a little bit of sediment in your bottles. You could get a 5 micron (correct me on size) filtration system to filter out the yeast and force carb your beer. That's the only other way I would know of and I'm fairly certain it's not practical on a homebrewer's scale of operation.

The use of a secondary (or even a tertiary) carboy can help reduce this...but every real tip is already here...longer primary times and cold crashing can help compact the trub, cloth over siphon, avoid trub til end, etc.

Also, if you have to move your carboy for bottling, do it AT LEAST 24 hours before you transfer so the trub can settle, and rotating the carboy can stir up just as much trub as moving it...good luck

I just rubber band one of these to the end of my racking cane. I got mine at Home Depot in a two-pack. Very cheap, washable, works great.

I am totally rethinking this ...

When I transfer the boiled wort from the kettle (Sanke), I am transferring all but a few ounes left at the convcave bottom of the keggle - hot break, all the settled protiens, and the rest of the gunk that forms during the boil. The keggle dip tube is practically centered and draws everything.

I do mash in a voile bag so the pre-boiled wort is clean and free of any grain or other mash material. I also use .2 micron filter bag for the hops. Again, there is no debris in the work other than the flocculation of proteins/polyphenols in the boil.

So in summary, hot break material is transferring to the carboy.

Could this be the root of my off flavor problem? What are the effects and taste of hot break in the fermenter?

Again, it is not that bad, but it is noticable to me as I taste it in every batch. Most others don't notice it.

Usually people avoid getting the trub into the fermenter. The poly phenols and tannins created during the hot break can greatly impede fermentation leaving you with low attenuation. Chill haze is often blamed as a result of hot break material in the beer as well.

Most brewer when they brew they adjust the final volume for the loss of trub. When I brew a 25 gallon batch, I'm leaving 1.5 gallons behind in the kettle as trub. This is not because the system is incapable of picking up the excess wort, but it's stuff I don't want in my finished beer. Therefore, I know I loose 1.5 gallons in trub, and 1.5 gallons per hour in the boil, so I'm actually boiling 28 gallons of wort to start.

Racking cane with a large binder clip to keep it off the bottom...

Calichusetts said:

...longer primary times and cold crashing can help compact the trub

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Very ture! :rockin:

Cold crashing has made it very easy for me to avoid sediment. After putting the bucket in the fridge for a few days, the trub was so compacted on the bottom, that I can put the auto siphon all the way to the bottom of the bucket without disturbing any trub.

cravej said:

Very ture! :rockin:

Cold crashing has made it very easy for me to avoid sediment. After putting the bucket in the fridge for a few days, the trub was so compacted on the bottom, that I can put the auto siphon all the way to the bottom of the bucket without disturbing any trub.

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I read up on "cold crashing," and understand the process. Since I'm very new to all of this. I'm going to ask flat out...

I have a Brooklyn Brew Shop kit and I'm in the beginning of my primary fermentation. Everything is going incredibly well. I just purchased and auto-siphon that I plan to use when bottling. My question is this. After my primary fermentation is finished (I do not plan to do a secondary), can I take my carboy and put it in the fridge overnight (do I leave the airlock on?), and then bottle the next day? Is that what cold crashing is? Would you recommend this process? Thanks!

I just brew larger batches. At least for all-grain it's not much more expensive. I brew a 6 gallon batch then, whirlpool in the kettle, then once it's settled, rack 5.5 gallons from the side and leave the break material behind. Then when fermentation is complete and settled (I go a month), I transfer 5 gallons to a keg and leave a 1/2 gallon behind. When racking from a carboy, I use a clip for glass and Better Bottles have a nice, convenient dimple in the middle to set the auto siphon on.

Now you might be saying, wow what a waste of a gallon of wort... not really. After racking off the kettle. I'll siphon some of the remaining for gravity testing and dump the rest. When racking from a carboy, I either harvest the yeast or more times than not, siphon the remaining clear/cloudy beer into a gallon glass jug. Then I let it settle, transfer the clear beer to liter water containers with homemade carbonator caps. Then I chill, force carbonate and enjoy. It's a nice treat while you wait for the rest to carb up.

I guess you could do carboy racking part if you bottle, you'd just need to calc the priming sugar part, but at least you'd squeeze a few more bottles into your batch.

JeffoC6 said:

I read up on "cold crashing," and understand the process. Since I'm very new to all of this. I'm going to ask flat out...

I have a Brooklyn Brew Shop kit and I'm in the beginning of my primary fermentation. Everything is going incredibly well. I just purchased and auto-siphon that I plan to use when bottling. My question is this. After my primary fermentation is finished (I do not plan to do a secondary), can I take my carboy and put it in the fridge overnight (do I leave the airlock on?), and then bottle the next day? Is that what cold crashing is? Would you recommend this process? Thanks!

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I would cold crash longer (2-4 days) and then make sure to put out your carboy at least 24 hours before siphoning so anything stirred up during the move will resettle

Calichusetts said:

I would cold crash longer (2-4 days) and then make sure to put out your carboy at least 24 hours before siphoning so anything stirred up during the move will resettle

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Ok...I read in a few places that before you cold crash, you should remove the airlock and replace it with sanitized foil and a rubber band to prevent suckback (i think it's called)? Since I'm using C-Brite (just ordered my first star san), I'm assuming that using the foil would be the best bet, because once cold crashing is done, I'm bottling anyway...right?

JeffoC6 said:

Ok...I read in a few places that before you cold crash, you should remove the airlock and replace it with sanitized foil and a rubber band to prevent suckback (i think it's called)? Since I'm using C-Brite (just ordered my first star san), I'm assuming that using the foil would be the best bet, because once cold crashing is done, I'm bottling anyway...right?

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Yeah foil is fine. If you feel more comfortable with the airlock, you can put vodka in it. If it sucks back a little vodka... No biggie. Actually it's a bonus.

scoundrel said:

Yeah foil is fine. If you feel more comfortable with the airlock, you can put vodka in it. If it sucks back a little vodka... No biggie. Actually it's a bonus.

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Awesome. So you would definitely recommend cold crashing for 2 or 3 days before I bottle?

squirrelly said:

Usually people avoid getting the trub into the fermenter. The poly phenols and tannins created during the hot break can greatly impede fermentation leaving you with low attenuation. Chill haze is often blamed as a result of hot break material in the beer as well.

Most brewer when they brew they adjust the final volume for the loss of trub. When I brew a 25 gallon batch, I'm leaving 1.5 gallons behind in the kettle as trub. This is not because the system is incapable of picking up the excess wort, but it's stuff I don't want in my finished beer. Therefore, I know I loose 1.5 gallons in trub, and 1.5 gallons per hour in the boil, so I'm actually boiling 28 gallons of wort to start.

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this is incorrect. the hot break will not impede fermentation or cause low attenuation. chill haze is not caused by hot break, once the proteins precipitate out of the wort do they somehow dissolve back into the wort? i don't think so. i would not say that most people avoid putting trub in the fermentor many people, me included, dump the whole kettle into the fermentor and my beer is very clear in all temperatures.

I have a two step method when I rack. First I tip my fermenter then siphon it into my bottling bucket. I don't worry to much if I get a little trub. I then let it settle for a couple of hours then open the spigot and let it pour into my secondary carboy leaving behind any trub i may have sucked up.

also that bitterness your getting could be from your water. You could try brewing with distilled water and see if its still there. If it is it could be just part of the flavor from the yeast. If not then it is your water.

ultravista

your problem may be in your water.

Brewing Water – Hard or Soft? | Home Brewing Beer Blog by BeerSmith

that should explain it better than I can. In order to confirm your problem is in your water try brewing a batch with distilled water and see if you have that bitterness. If you don't then spend the time and money to get a profile of your water and adjust it accordingly.

JeffoC6 said:

Awesome. So you would definitely recommend cold crashing for 2 or 3 days before I bottle?

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It's up to you. I don't but I let my beer sit for a month. If you know for sure that fermentation is complete, you can definitely crash it for a couple days.

pksmitty said:

I just rubber band one of these to the end of my racking cane. I got mine at Home Depot in a two-pack. Very cheap, washable, works great.

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Do you put it in a sanitizer solution and let it dry before using it?

I put a wedge under my fermenter on the first day. It helps the trub to mostly settle to one side right from the beginning. But I also have an advantage in that I have my fermenter on a shelf and siphon to my bottling bucket right there, so I don't have to move the fermenter and disturb the trub. Once I place my fermenter on the shelf on brew day, it doesn't move again til cleaning time. By putting that wedge under there I'm able to siphon without getting too much other sediment mixed in.

When transferring to the primary fermenter, is there any reason to not strain the break material through a paint strainer into the fermenter? I typically leave a quart or two of goodness behind, which I lament after the last beer of the batch is gone.

One time when using pellet hops I just dumped it all in the primary and besides a thicker layer of trub, the beer did not seem to suffer. But I don't use a secondary so I only do two transfers and I'd like to leave the unnecessaries behind when possible.