Straining beer when transferring to bottling bucket

Brewer's Friend 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
M

McBrewski

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
52
Reaction score
0
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
Right now I have my beer in secondary fermentation in my carboy. Is it a good idea to pour the beer through a strainer when transferring it into my bottling bucket, or do some of the particles need to be kept with the beer for flavor purposes?

Also, if I pour the beer through a strainer, does that clear the sediment in the beer out enough to allow me to completely bypass the secondary fermentation step?

Thanks!
 
You don't want to 'pour' the beer anywhere at this point because oxidation will occur. You want to 'rack' your beer (meaning siphon) so that no oxygen is mixed with the beer. If you leave the beer in the secondary long enough.....most if not all of the particles will settle to the bottom, so... you'll 'rack' your beer without sucking any of it up. Hope this helps....
 
Right...rack is the word I meant to use instead of pour. I guess my main question is will siphoning the beer through a strainer into the bottling bucket help in any way or would it be pointless to do so?
 
No.....First off, you never want to "pour" fermented beer, unless it is going from a bottle to your glass.

You want to gently rack from the bottom of the secondary to the bottom of your bottling bucket gently. Limiting the amount of air contact on the beer which can cause a wet cardborad off flavor...by using an autoshiphon and filling in this manner (the same way you fill a bottle from the bottom to the top) the co2 cushion that is protecting the beer will push any oxygen up and out of your vessel, again protecting you beer from too much O2 exposure.

Now as to the need to "strain" if you have secondaried or long primaried, all the stuff you let settle, is at the bottom, and if you carefully siphon, you won't get anything transfered.

What I do is hold the autosiphon so it is a little above the sediment layer and and rack the majority of beer over (you can clip or clamp it) then I gently lower it to catch the rest of your beer.

You really won't get much in your beer if you are careful...some people do stick a a piece of pantyhose or hopsack material and rubberband it to the bottom of the autosiphon (make sure it all is sanitized) if they think there is lots of hop chunks or other particles in it...that acts as a strainer or filter.

But rarely i my experince is that even necessary.

Hope this helps.

Remember once you pitch the yeast and until you are about to drink the beer in a glass, "pouring" of any kind is bad for the beer...

And if you want to read some tips for bottling, that a bunch of us put together, check out this thread. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f35/revvys-tips-bottler-first-time-otherwise-94812/
 
Hammy71 said:
You don't want to 'pour' the beer anywhere at this point because oxidation will occur. You want to 'rack' your beer (meaning siphon) so that no oxygen is mixed with the beer. If you leave the beer in the secondary long enough.....most if not all of the particles will settle to the bottom, so... you'll 'rack' your beer without sucking any of it up. Hope this helps....
Click to expand...

+1 for not pouring into your bottling bucket, +2 for not straining as you pour, both will introduce oxygen ruining your beer.

As for using a secondary, it will help to clear, but an extended primary will suffice as long as you are careful when racking to the bottling bucket.

Remember, if you bottle condition, you will also have another three weeks to allow sedimentation to occur inside the bottle, helping to clear the beer. In addition, if you place your bottles into the fridge for a week or two after conditioning, and before drinking, it will also help to clear your beer.

And +1,000,000 for Revvy's bottling tips, they helped me out significantly! :D
 
its pointless ... just wait for the beer to clear naturaly then rack to your bottling bucket and bottle.
 
I've never understood the desire to have perfectly sediment free homebrew. Its not going to hurt you. If anything, its a little extra protein. And its not going to hurt the beer either.

You should have seen the crap that settled out of my cranberry pLambic. A year later, it was just as tasty.
 
Beernik said:
I've never understood the desire to have perfectly sediment free homebrew. Its not going to hurt you. If anything, its a little extra protein. And its not going to hurt the beer either.

You should have seen the crap that settled out of my cranberry pLambic. A year later, it was just as tasty.
Click to expand...

Lol maybe because I don't want chunks of **** going into my mouth while I'm drinking a beer?

Also, my auto-siphon broke my first time using it, is there really a huge problem with me just using my mouth on the tubing to get it started?
 
McBrewski said:
Lol maybe because I don't want chunks of **** going into my mouth while I'm drinking a beer?

Also, my auto-siphon broke my first time using it, is there really a huge problem with me just using my mouth on the tubing to get it started?
Click to expand...

There is always a possibility of infection when using your mouth to start a siphon, ther is alot of bacteria in your mouth, and hell we don't even know where your mouth has been!:D

A siphon can be started by filling your hose with water and allowing the water to drain in order to start the siphon, opposed to suckin on it!
 
McBrewski said:
Lol maybe because I don't want chunks of **** going into my mouth while I'm drinking a beer?

QUOTE]

When your beer has been properly bottle conditioned you will be able to pour it off the yeast w/o getting any of it in your glass-just pour slowly and try not to let it glug and the yeast will stay on the bottom of the bottle.
A new brewer freind of mine is hung up on getting used to drinking beer out of a glass.I told him-after that beer is done,you will want to see it in the glass.You want to see the color,clarity, carbonation,and want to be able to smell it.
And, if you absolutely want to drink it out of a bottle--pour it off the sediment into another bottle.
Click to expand...
 
I never get chunks in me beer...nor do I get much sediment, and I don't filter.

I do a month in primary, use moss in my boil, bottle condition a minimum of 3 weeks, and whenever possible chill my bottles for a week, and pour properly...all those things contribute to "chunkless" beer....
 
So after I rack the beer into bottles, I don't put them in the fridge? I let them condition and THEN put them in the fridge?
 
The bottles need to sit at room temp (70F+) for at least three weeks to carbonate. If you put them right in the fridge, the yeast will go to sleep before they can do that. You have nice, cold, flat beer.
 
or you could say f*** the bottling bucket and bottle out of your secondary. all the bottling bucket does is add a new opportunity for contamination. if you do like was previously mentioned and dont drag the bottom of the siphon around in the yeast you shouldnt get too much s*** at all. even if you get chunks of s*** in your bottles they will be in the bottom of your glass or bottle. even if all the yeast comes out when i pour one of my beers, it settles into a nice clump of s*** in the bottom of the glass. to drink it or not, the choice is yours. ive also heard of gargling with vodka prior to using your mouth to start the siphon, but that sounds sketchy to me.
 
I filter my beer into the bottling bucket if I have dry hopped with pellets. I put a large grain bag over my autosiphon and don't even need rubber bands or etc. to hold it in place - the bag is long enough that it extends all the way up through the neck of the carboy and fits tightly enough in the opening that it won't slip down. I sanitize it in boiling water for about 10 minutes, fish it out with tongs and then handle it only by the open end which will never be in the beer. The first time I used a bag to filter, I sanitized it in Iodophore and found that the bag retained a lot of sanitizer even after letting it drip for a while - I never detected any bad flavors from the Iodophore in that batch, but have started using the boiling water instead just to be safe. I also take off the removable end of the autosiphon when using this method so I don't leave too much beer behind - then hold the autosiphon up off the trub while racking.

EDIT July 31, 2012: I found a better way. I sanitize (by boiling) a jumbo size grain bag (from AHS, about 25"x35") and place it in the bottling bucket. I fold the excess material over the top of the bucket and secure it with a bungee cord around the outside of the bucket. Then I place the siphon hose in the bottom of the bag which is all the way down on the bottom of the bucket, and rack into the bucket. When finished, I just lift out the bag with all the hop residue and drop it into an empty bucket right next to the bottling bucket, so the bag doesn't drip onto the floor. Well that's what I had been doing before I started kegging, but it works much better than the first method I gave above.
 
hopsy said:
or you could say f*** the bottling bucket and bottle out of your secondary. all the bottling bucket does is add a new opportunity for contamination. if you do like was previously mentioned and dont drag the bottom of the siphon around in the yeast you shouldnt get too much s*** at all. even if you get chunks of s*** in your bottles they will be in the bottom of your glass or bottle. even if all the yeast comes out when i pour one of my beers, it settles into a nice clump of s*** in the bottom of the glass. to drink it or not, the choice is yours. ive also heard of gargling with vodka prior to using your mouth to start the siphon, but that sounds sketchy to me.
Click to expand...

So, do you skip the bottling sugar and drink your beer flat, or stir that into your secondary, stirring up everything that's settled out at the bottom in the process?
 
ChshreCat said:
So, do you skip the bottling sugar and drink your beer flat, or stir that into your secondary, stirring up everything that's settled out at the bottom in the process?
Click to expand...

i still add the sugar, stirring gently not too far down in the carboy which doesnt disturb anything in my experience.if it does, the i let it sit for a bit to settle out again. i do very little stirring and ive always been happy with my carbonation levels. besides, usually all thats in the bottom of the carboy at this point is yeast, which you need for carbonation anyways. as long as you dont pick it up and roll it around for 10 minutes, you should be fine.
 
I have bottled from a carboy before. Pouring the sugar syrup in the carboy without a funnel wasn't easy. I thought it was a nuisance compared to a bottling bucket.
 
I saw a you-tube video of a guy using a strainer when transferring the beer to the bottling bucket to avoid excess sediment at bottling. (the tube laid on the strainer as the beer poured thru it).. Normally, I would have just put the tube at the bottom of the bucket and let it transfer, but I followed his advice, and now I dunno?? Oxygen obviously got into the entire batch with the tube just sitting on the strainer, and almost 4 weeks now, there's no Pssshhh sound when popping the caps, I went and shook the bottles (all of them) this week, and there is fizz at the heads of the glass, but could I be somehow screwed by using that strainer, and not just putting the tube in the bucket during the transfer to avoid excess oxygen getting to it ?
 
If you want to bottle from the fermenter without even risking stirring up much sediment, Muntons makes these sugar tabs that you just drop into your bottles. They work amazingly and eliminate the risk of your priming sugar mixing unevenly in your beer. I've used them many times and never had any problems.
 
I transferred the beer to the bottling bucket then added my sugar, but in doing so I used a strainer instead of just putting the hose at the bottom of the bottling bucket. So i'm wondering while the beer was pouring thru the strainer into the bottling bucket it was obviously exposed to alot of oxygen (Rather than having the hose inside the bucket).........Could this be a problem?.......
 
dstranger99 said:
I transferred the beer to the bottling bucket then added my sugar, but in doing so I used a strainer instead of just putting the hose at the bottom of the bottling bucket. So i'm wondering while the beer was pouring thru the strainer into the bottling bucket it was obviously exposed to alot of oxygen (Rather than having the hose inside the bucket).........Could this be a problem?.......
Click to expand...

Yes, it will oxidize the beer. It'll be ok at first, but the signs of oxidation get worse with time so if you drink it pretty fast it might not be too bad.
 
Yooper said:
Yes, it will oxidize the beer. It'll be ok at first, but the signs of oxidation get worse with time so if you drink it pretty fast it might not be too bad.
Click to expand...

I was afraid you'd say that, and the you tube video of the guy doing that was from one of those home brew kits....I'm gonna go back out and find that video just to call him a dumba**.........

Thanks.
 
TipsyDragon said:
its pointless ... just wait for the beer to clear naturaly then rack to your bottling bucket and bottle.
Click to expand...

I have discovered that I can get the last of the sediment out with minimal effort by: I add my bottling sugar to my bottling bucket and then rack from the carboy to my bottling bucket after placing a large brew in the bag bag in the bucket. It can be held in place with a bungee cord and allows the lid to be replaced. The racking tube fits nicely into the overflow grommet. All components, bag, bucket, racking cane, tubing, etc. must be completely sanitized. Before actually bottling the bag can be removed, wear gloves and/or sanitize your hands/gloves, and set aside. This last straining assures that I don't pick up sediment with the auto racking cane... I have been known to try too hard to get that last sip of beer out of the carboy and... collect sediment.... this solves that problem. The only issue is being sure everything is sanitized.
 

Similar threads

P
why siphon instead of pour if next step is aeration?
Replies
18
Views
931
jerrylotto
jerrylotto
F
Transferred to secondary too soon. Dump it?
Replies
10
Views
796
WesBrew
WesBrew
C
First Time Adding Priming Sugar to Bottling Bucket
Replies
23
Views
959
day_trippr
day_trippr
Hoochin'Fool
would you bottle this beer?
Replies
22
Views
836
mac_1103
mac_1103
luckybeagle
Conditioning in kegs prior to pressurizing or bottling?
Replies
27
Views
1K
BongoYodeler
BongoYodeler
InkBird 300

Latest posts

Back
Top