Filtering the sediment during bottling?

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Ringmaster

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I used a Mr. Beer kit thing.. in case that has anything to do with this. Although my questions are pretty basic in nature so i didn't see a point in posting them under the Mr. Beer thread.

Filter
When i'm bottling the beers can i use something to filter out the yeast that's sitting on the bottom of the keg? or do i need that to stay in there for the bottles to carbonate?

Wood Chips
I've been to the Budweiser factory something like 50-60 times since i was like 12. I love their tour.. when we went to Six Flags that's really where i wanted to go :D

Anyway something i remember about their fermentation process, they use wood chips at the bottom of their kegs.. or umm.. fermentors? i really don't know what to call them, they are a lot bigger then the mr. beer set up.

Anyway, wood chips. . . What are they for? is that something i can use? And if i can how would i go about using them? would i have to sanitize them first or something?

Smart Water
I realize that water is supposed to be one of the more important ingredients, so i used the little filter thingy on the sink when i was making beer for the first time. But I really want to use the best water i can to keep my beer in good shape. So i was wondering if Smart Water would be a good idea? or is there some water in particular that's preferred? I was worried that Smart Water might have been missing some yeast or chemical or something that the beer would need during the fermentation process.

I used filtered water for every step of the process even when i had to boil the wort and i'm pretty sure boiling it would have fixed any problems anyway. So i'm taking this water thing pretty seriously. Think it worked out cause the batch ended up being awesome.
 
Not familiar with Mr Beer, but all fermenters end up with sediment on the bottom. When you bottle or keg, you just avoid sucking that sediment out.

The beer does need yeats to carbonate in the bottles, but you don't really need to grab any of that sediment.... there is plenty of live yeast still floating around in the beer.

You can read about beechwood aging here:
http://***********/stories/wizard/a...go-about-using-beechwood-chips-in-my-homebrew
I honestly wouldn't bother with it, but you can do what you want.

And, finally... Smart Water....

I have no idea what that even is. I just use my tap water. No filtering or anything.
 
Congrats on a great first batch!

You don't need to filter, that would oxidize your beer, just don't suck up the sediment. There is plenty of yeast still left in suspension to carb up your bottles.

I wouldn't start aging on wood until you get a few batches in, it's done to add more complex flavors to your finished product.

Use your tap water, it sounds like it worked very well for your first batch. If it ain't broke don't fix it!
 
+1 to Walker. In regards to the filtering, you could use a sanitized muslin bag to wrap around your racking cain to help filter out some of the large floating particles. However, you will still have yeast that are still in suspension...but that's fine, because you'll need them to still be present to help with bottle conditioning.
 
Not familiar with Mr Beer, but all fermenters end up with sediment on the bottom. When you bottle or keg, you just avoid sucking that sediment out.

The beer does need yeats to carbonate in the bottles, but you don't really need to grab any of that sediment.... there is plenty of live yeast still floating around in the beer.

You can read about beechwood aging here:
http://***********/stories/wizard/a...go-about-using-beechwood-chips-in-my-homebrew
I honestly wouldn't bother with it, but you can do what you want.

And, finally... Smart Water....

I have no idea what that even is. I just use my tap water. No filtering or anything.

My tap water seems to be perfect for the kind of ales I like according to my local HBS. I would get a water test kit and compare it against the style yuo are going for if you are really concerned, but I havent had any bad batches with my tap water.

From the yeast perspective you will have yeast that falls out of suspension. Just dont get crazy with your racking to your bottling bucket. Pay attention to your siphon when racking... if you see alot of material going through either stop shaking so much or just lift it off the bottom. You will need yeast to carbonate, but there is usually ample in the beer already
 
Well the last batch was kinda screwed up.

Mr. Beer is kind of a cheapo way to start, it does 2 gallons and there's no siphon involved it's just one of those little plastic things you pour lemonade out of.. if that makes sense.

I had to move the fermenter when i was bottling and well.. i had a helper who ended up shaking the damn thing up. I thought they knew better since they've done it before.. but what can i do. At least they were willing to help so i appreciated that.

So i had a lot of sediment in every bottle, it settled on the bottom but it's bugging the **** out of me, so i just want to keep out as much as possible on the next go.

I guess i'll stay away from the beach wood for awhile, and i might try out that muslin bag trick..

Oh i got another question.. what's a bottling bucket? i just went straight from the keg deally to the bottles.. i mean the whole system is kind of dumbed down i'm supposed to according to the instructions. But eventually i plan on using better equipment so i'd kind of like to know.

Thank you everyone for the info! and the congratulations! i'm really proud, drinking beer i made :p i was really worried it'd suck the first few times.
 
So i had a lot of sediment in every bottle, it settled on the bottom but it's bugging the **** out of me, so i just want to keep out as much as possible on the next go.

I guess i'll stay away from the beach wood for awhile, and i might try out that muslin bag trick..

Define "a lot of sediment".... 1/4 inch? 1/2 inch? 1 inch?

You will always have some sediment in bottle conditioned beer. There's no way to avoid it.

Oh i got another question.. what's a bottling bucket? i just went straight from the keg deally to the bottles.. i mean the whole system is kind of dumbed down i'm supposed to according to the instructions. But eventually i plan on using better equipment so i'd kind of like to know.

Folks will generally transfer their beer out of their large fermenters and into a bucket that has a spigot attached to it, like this:

bbucket__11332_thumb.jpg


You attach a hose and (usually) a little plastic, spring-tipped item called a "bottling wand" to the spigot to make bottling easy. You just press the spring tip of the wand against the bottom of the bottle and beer flows. When you get the bottle full, you lift the tip off the bottom of the bottle and the spring closes the little valve, stopping the flow.
 
bbucket__11332_thumb.jpg


You attach a hose and (usually) a little plastic, spring-tipped item called a "bottling wand" to the spigot to make bottling easy. You just press the spring tip of the wand against the bottom of the bottle and beer flows. When you get the bottle full, you lift the tip off the bottom of the bottle and the spring closes the little valve, stopping the flow.


I have a question about this. I will have my beer in the secondary bucket soon, and it has the standard spigot on the side. I am brewing a Belgian IPA, so there will be a lot of hoppy sediment along with the yeast. Is it a good idea (or even feasable) to put some sort of filter (like cheese cloth or something similar) on the inside of the bucket, over the hole of the spigot, to keep the hops out of the bottles? Yeast will still be able to filter through, I assume. But this would keep the hops out.

I posed this to a few homebrew guys I know, and they were of the opinion that having a bit of the hops in there is ok. If it isn't a huge amount of trouble, I would just rather filter more of the hops out. I just would want to make sure that enough yeast was getting through for the bottle conditioning. And, also, I would want to make sure it wasn't a pain in the butt to affix and/or clean.
 
i think the confusion here is he's not "racking" at all. he's using a mr beer kit. a mr. beer kit, you don't have a secondary, or a bottling bucket, and you don't use a racking cane. everyone is right, don't filter the beer from the fermentor to the bottle, but you can't simply "rack over top of the trub", because you don't "rack" with a mr. beer kit. it's kind of like a party pig, it just has a little twist open/close spigot on the front of it, and you open it to let the beer pour out, and turn it the other way to close it again.

i would just sit the mr. beer "keg" onto a counter, and let it rest for an hour or so, to make sure all the sediment is on the bottom, maybe even elivate the front end of it so that the sediment will pool on the bottom backside of the "keg", then bottle slowly, and if you want to be absolutely sure you have zero sediment, leave the last little bit of beer in the keg instead of bottling it. you'll still probably have a bit of sediment in the bottle, but just decant the beer into a glass slowly and carefully, and leave the last tiny bit of beer and sediment in the bottom of the bottle.
hope that helps!
 
I use my bottling bucket just for bottling. You don't have to use it as your secondary. Just siphon your beer from your primary fermentation bucket into the sanitized bottling bucket. Clean out the primary, sanitize it and then siphon back to it.
After the secondary fermentation is done siphon back to the bottling bucket and add your sanitized priming sugar, stir gently to combine and fill bottles.
This will help a lot of your sedimentation issues by siphoning the beer off the top each time and leaving the sediment behind.
If you use the bottling bucket as your secondary and the sediment is higher than the spout, you will suck it in and possibly some left over hops.
With this process there should be no real need to filter.
And don't worry about having enough yeast for carbonation, there will be plenty suspended in the beer. Just try and suck up as little of the sediment as possible when siphoning. Sometimes this requires leaving a 1/2" of beer on top of the sediment. Just count it as a loss.

Hope this helps!
 
No filtering, it will oxidize your beer! Just rack over top the trub.

will it really oxidize the beer? I mean how would it pull in oxygen if it is under the surface of the beer? I love me some hops, but after hearing people talk about dry hopping too long, I thought it would be better to filter the hops out when bottling, and bought some extra bags. If it is really going to oxidize I will do without, because I am sure that little bit of hops isn't going to make that much of a difference.
 
will it really oxidize the beer? I mean how would it pull in oxygen if it is under the surface of the beer? I love me some hops, but after hearing people talk about dry hopping too long, I thought it would be better to filter the hops out when bottling, and bought some extra bags. If it is really going to oxidize I will do without, because I am sure that little bit of hops isn't going to make that much of a difference.

yes it will really oxidize your beer, just in the same way of when you rack from your brew kettle into your primary, most people rack into one of those funnels with the mesh screen filter inside, because you WANT to oxigenate your beer in that step, to help along primary fermentation. after fermentation though, you don't want to oxigenate your beer.

like other said, it's really easy to not get hops, trub, etc. in your beers if you just take a few simple steps, like make sure your beer sits undisturbed for a bit before you start to transfer into your bottling bucket or keg, keep your racking cane up above the trub, leaving behind a bit of the beer if you have to, to avoid sucking up trub. and also like it was said, if you dry hopped, or are overly worried, you can put something like a wire mesh screen, or a hop bag, etc. on the bottom of your racking cane to help filter out a bit, and most racking canes that are the self siphoning kind have a "plug" that goes on the bottom of it to help keep out chunks anyways.
 
If that's the case he could probably use gelatin, and let it sit for a day or so before bottling.
 
a hop bag, etc. on the bottom of your racking cane to help filter out a bit, and most racking canes that are the self siphoning kind have a "plug" that goes on the bottom of it to help keep out chunks anyways.

This is what I was planning on doing. I guess yall are saying it will oxygenate it if you put a bag over the spigot on the mr. beer kit. So bag on racking cane=no oxygenation. good deal.
 
woah, woah, woah..... People are talking and not reading.

There were two separate things talked about here. The OP was about sediment, filtering, and Mr. Beer. We all agree that there should be no filtering, just be careful when bottling and avoid as much sediment as possible.

Then, he asked what a bottling bucket was.

THEN someone else jumped in (raveskdr) with a question about the beer currently in in a fermenter.

raveskdr said:
I will have my beer in the secondary bucket soon, and it has the standard spigot on the side. I am brewing a Belgian IPA, so there will be a lot of hoppy sediment along with the yeast.

Addressing that now...

I am assuming you have a two-bucket brewery? Do both of your buckets have spigots on them? If only one has a spigot, you kind of used the gear in a weird order.

You want your spigotted bucket to be empty at the start of bottling day. If you are just doing primary fermentation and bottling, you ferment in the plain bucket and then transfer into the bottling bucket (avoiding the sediment in the fermenter) when you are ready to bottle it.

If you are doing two-stage fermentation with that same equipment, you would probably want to do the primary fermentation in the bucket with the spigot, then transfer into the plain bucket for a secondary. Then on bottling day you transfer back into the spigotted bucket.

If I understand what you have going on right now, you are about to rack your beer into that spigotted bucket and let it sit for a while again before bottling? That might be a problem because before you bottle you are going to have to mix sugar into the beer. Any sediment on the bottom when you bottle is going to be kicked right back into the beer.

I personally would not do a secondary if I were you. I would just let it sit in the primary until you are ready to bottle it and then transfer it into that spigotted bucket.
 
+1 on what Walker said. Save the bottling bucket (bucket with spigot) for bottling. Siphon gently into it with your bottling sugar and then use the spigot to bottle. If you use the spigot to rack out of, you don't have much control over getting sediment or not, and trying to bottle out of your secondary just makes it a pain trying to mix in your bottling sugar without stirring up the yeast.

Oh, and I couldn't resist... :D

The beer does need yeats to carbonate in the bottles,

YEATS.jpg
 
if you're too lazy to read and wanna watch a pretty good documentary, start here... ... i know they talk about the beechwood aging process a little bit, its 5 parts on youtube
 
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Kudos to walker for keeping the thread on topic.

I know were past beechwood aging already but I just have to hammer home that the technique is not for wood flavor. They boil the buhgeezus out if those woodchunks then put them at the bottom of the fermenter for enhanced nucleation.

Afterall, it is bud. Do you taste any wood character? No.
 
Thank you, I appreciate the answer.

No problem. And to reiterate....

If you want to do a secondary on a future brew, I would suggest using the bottling bucket as the primary. Then transfer to the plain bucket for a secondary, and finally back to the bottling bucket on bottling day.
 
it provides more surface area for your yeast to collect on.

The intent is that more surface area means less yeast in the finished product and possibly a cleaner yeast character.
 
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