Filtering from primary to secondary

When transferring from a primary to a secondary, can you use a coffee filter to catch any settlement that may get caught up in your siphon hose so you will have a clearer beer?

You shouldn't. A coffee filter will be an excellent way to highly aerate your beer. Good for when you first transfer out of the boiler, bad for finished beer. The secondary is the whole point of racking to it anyways, to allow for further clarification. It will settle out and that'll be good.

The main purpose of a secondary is for clearing.

Don't try to rush a natural process.

Okay thanks. Was just a thought, but I understand what you are saying.

Would a muslin bag wrapped around the auto siphon cause aeration too? I dry hopped by just throwing in the hop pellets so I was thinking of the best way to keep them out of the bottling bucket.

landis said:

Would a muslin bag wrapped around the auto siphon cause aeration too? I dry hopped by just throwing in the hop pellets so I was thinking of the best way to keep them out of the bottling bucket.

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Not necessary. The hops should have fallen out and be sitting on the bottom.

Just don't be so greedy (trying to get the last drop) when racking...

haha...i like that get greeedy statement...

I too get greedy when going from the primary to the secondary...haha...

landis said:

Would a muslin bag wrapped around the auto siphon cause aeration too? I dry hopped by just throwing in the hop pellets so I was thinking of the best way to keep them out of the bottling bucket.

Click to expand...

You could put a bag around the part that goes into the carboy instead of the outside for bottling.

Sure get yourself a DE filter. Only a few thousand bucks.

Otherwise just let the clearing vessel (secondary) do its thing naturally

Or even better, if possible crash cool the primary before racking.

Heck, I've even taken to sucking up a bit of the cake while racking into the secondary. I was inspired to do this reading about brewers who leave their beers in primary for up to four weeks so the yeast can clean up after themselves. While I don't yet have enough buckets to do this (I want to get a variety of beers going), I thought I might simulate this at least a little bit by transferring just a little of the cake to the carboy. I can't say for sure if it has helped, but most certainly has not hurt my beer.

I'm greedy and want all the beer I can get in the secondary so I let it go until it starts slurping the cake and then stop, sometimes even tilting the fermenter so the beer drains down to the siphon. It all settles out after a day or two.

- Eric

You don't need a secondary at all. The beer will clear after 2 weeks in the primary and then you can keg or bottle. What makes beer really clear is a good rolling boil, finings (Whirlfloc) in the last 15 minutes of the boil and using a chiller to cool the wort as fast as you can to 65F to 70F and keeping the beer at the correct fermentation temperatures the whole time. Being sanitary is always important after the boil too. If you skip any of the above then you may not get optimum results.