from primary to secondry

hi guys.

i have made a brew and i got a keg set for my bday so im nearly ready to do my 1st get brew. cant wait.
my question is, is it better to use the tap on the bottom of the fermenter to the secondry, or take the liquid from the top??
i have a sediment reducer on my fermenter so should i just use the tap??
this would reduce the contamination factor would it not??

If I understand correctly, you've got a spigot on the bottom of your fermenting bucket? If it's up high enough, it'll work great for transferring your beer. As long as the trub is well settled, most or all should stay behind. My only concern would be that it's too high, and you'll leave too much beer behind. Then again, you could always tip it a little to drain the leftover beer out.

The "contamination factor" would be about the same using either method (siphoning vs. spigot).

yeah it hiht enough. my fermenter is sitting on a bar fridge about 1 meter of the ground. i could use the hight for transfer no problems. my keg is a 19 litre one and i have got 23 litres in the fermenter so whats left i will just bottle.

what do you think??

Althougth I havent' been doing this long I would partly agree. The only reason I would stick with the shipion is that you will be able to control the depth where you transfer from.

I would think it would be better to have a bit less beer than a bit more sediment.

I would be worried about possible contamination in the spigot.

rohan said:

yeah it hiht enough. my fermenter is sitting on a bar fridge about 1 meter of the ground. i could use the hight for transfer no problems. my keg is a 19 litre one and i have got 23 litres in the fermenter so whats left i will just bottle.

what do you think??

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Smells like a plan! I see what Waldo is saying about the spigot. Did you clean it out well before you transferred your wort into it? As long as it's not nasty, I wouldn't be to worried about contamination, as the alcohol in your beer should be able to overpower it. I've done this before with no problems.

Now if the spigot is crusty, just siphon it. But at this point, I think clean would suffice. Run a pipe cleaner or a q-tip with some no-rinse sanitizer in there, if you're worried.

but surley a contemenation risk it hight by taking the lid of the fermenter??
im in australia, and i usualy just bottle the beer from the fermenter (no secondary) but that is what all of us here seem to do here. i have never put beer in a keg before (cant wait) so i thought that you would bust use a hose on the tap from the fermenter into a 19 litre container and put it in a fridge for 3 days (let the sediment go to the bottom) then transfer the beer into the keg... i will see how i go. thaks guys for your help.

That's your bottling bucket, dude!

homebrewer_99 said:

That's your bottling bucket, dude!

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According to what he's saying, his primary and bottling bucket are one in the same.

It's one of the many ways to skin this cat!

yeah thats right. its a bit hard cause of the term that is used (american-australian)
down here we only use the fermenter. once it is finished it goes straight into the bottles. but if we are gegging the beer it goes into what we call a "cube" then into the fridge for 3 days to get all the sediment out. from there into the keg and into your belly...

thanks for the help guys...

Ahhhhh.....I see.

just a quick one. on what you call a carboy. it has a tap on the bottom doesnt it?? i supose you guys would have alot less sediment (more like none??)

No, a carboy is made of glass, usually 5 to 6.5 gals.

We use a primary (plastic) bucket, a carboy (glass), then a bottling (with the spigot at the bottom) bucket (for gravity feed into bottles).

interesting. thats for that, would like to try it 1 day... thanks again for your help huys... sorry for all the questions...

No problem. That's why we come here, to trade ideas and let everyone else know what works and doesn't.

rohan said:

yeah thats right. its a bit hard cause of the term that is used (american-australian)
down here we only use the fermenter. once it is finished it goes straight into the bottles. but if we are gegging the beer it goes into what we call a "cube" then into the fridge for 3 days to get all the sediment out. from there into the keg and into your belly...

thanks for the help guys...

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When we gett a kit here (extract) it only ever mentions priimary and bottling. I don't know any one here who uses a secondary or a bottling bucket.

I'm going to bottle a small batch from the fermenter staright to bottles then compare it to the rest of the batch that goes in the secondary. (I'm sure there'll be a big difference)

orfy said:

When we gett a kit here (extract) it only ever mentions priimary and bottling. I don't know any one here who uses a secondary or a bottling bucket.

I'm going to bottle a small batch from the fermenter staright to bottles then compare it to the rest of the batch that goes in the secondary. (I'm sure there'll be a big difference)

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yeah I use those sort of kits too (I'm guessing you're using Coopers or so). I usually go to secondary then bottles - makes quite a big difference I think. At the very least it means it gets another couple of days before you start drinking it, cos once it's in the bottles a week or 2 the temptation is there to try one.....