Few Questions About Transferring to Secondary

I just transferred my first brew to secondary and was wondering, are you supposed to leave any liquid at all in the primary? From what I understood, the auto-siphon tool that I used was not supposed to touch the bottom of the primary carboy (otherwise the gunk would be transferred as well), and if this is correct, then aren't you forced to leave a little bit of liquid in the primary?

On the same topic, anywhere I read it says that exposure to oxygen at this stage is very important to prevent. When you transfer from primary to secondary, once you pop the airlock from the primary to the point where you put on the airlock on the secondary, a good 10 minutes goes by...so is that fine? Or am I missing something?


Thanks in advance.

you're going to get a little Trub, no worries. it will settle in secondary.

don't sweat the oxygen exposure. as long as you didn't have it falling in to the secondary like a waterfall and shaking it up then its not that big a deal.

you did fine. breathe in, breathe out, repeat

Yes, you leave behind a small amount of liquid, just enough so you don't get any trub. If at at all possible, it is good to purge your secondary with Co2 before transferring, but it's not the end of the world if you don't. (many people don't, and it turns out fine) Many people also do not use a secondary, which reduces the risk of oxidation.

You all good.

The reason you start with 7 gallons of water (or whatever) for a 5 gallon batch is because you are always leaving some behind. You will leave more in the bottling bucket.

I let the auto-siphon touch the bottom . you get a little trub but not that much. It'll settle in the secondary.

As for "exposure to oxygen" - just don't splash the beer into the carboy - that is the important part. Put the air lock on as soon as you can but there is air in the carboy already so you have lost that battle already LOL

MAN - you guys are fast!!!!!! to answer!!

Melted tubing brown ale

Click to expand...

HAS to be a good story behind that one!

Haha yeah that was my first time siphoning out of the kettle through a CFC. I used the wrong kind of tubing, and it got very soft and sticky. The beer came out ok, but very bitter. Granted I used 2 oz of hops, but I think a lot of bitterness came from the tubing. It is drinkable though...

Thanks for clearing that up everyone!