What's that crud?

I ferment in a bottling bucket and when ready just open the spigot and drain to another bottling bucket leaving most of the crud on the bottom of the first bucket.
What is that crud called and exactly what is it. Today I ran into a problem. I decided to transfer to a carboy and try the 1-2-3- system everyone is talking about. The crud on the bottom of the bucket was past the spigot level and had to use a siphon. Why so much more crud? I used liquid rather then dry yeast for the first time, could that have made the differnce? Is this good or bad?

The crud is "trub" and it is yeast, proteins, hops, etc that have settled out of your brew. The amount of trub you have depends on what you've brewed. Some of my brews have had a several inches by the time I transfered it.

Did you have a hose on your spigot? Hopefully you did but using the spigot is not the best way to transfer your brew for a couple of reasons. One, for the reason you mentioned (clogging up the spigot) but the main reason is oxygenation. You want to transfer your brew very gently! Get an auto siphon with a long hose that will lay in the bottom of your secondary so there is no splashing during the transfer. Also, the best thing about an auto siphon is that it allows you to leave the trub in the fermenter.

don't use the spigot man. its really hard to sanitize the inside of it right before you drain, so its an open source for possible contamination.

get an auto-siphon, and always do that. save the spigot for bottling day, where you can sanitize it inside and out prior to racking beer into it and opening the valve to bottle.

Thanks for the info. Did use an auto siphon with tube for the first time . I was surprised it worked so good.