lots of yeast in bottles

last couple batches we've had a TON of yeast in our bottles. so much so that we get a ton of little floaties when we pour. are we being to greedy when transferring the beer from the secondary and getting too much yeast from the bottom?

When you siphon into bottle bucket...
Put a sanitized 1 gal paint strainer on the output hose with a cable tie...
Gets all the big stuff...

If you get lots of yeast pickup from a secondary, your racking technique is likely the culprit. Keep a close eye on the color of the beer in the tubing as you transfer it - you want it to look clear (unless we are talking Witbier of Hefeweizen). If it is opaque, lift up the racking cane a little bit so that you siphon from above the yeast/trub bed.

You may also want to work on minimizing trub transfer from the boil kettle to the fermenter by boiling the hops in a 5-gallon pain stainer or nylon bag stretched over the opening of the boil kettle, whirlpooling, siphoning and straining your wort as you rack into the fermenter. Trub in the fermenter doesn't hurt your beer, but minimizing it makes racking easier.

Adding finings like gelatin can also help compact the yeast bed, as can cold crashing.

Finally, work on your pouring technique. Pour your beer in a well-lit environment - you'll be able to see the sediment moving up to the neck of the bottle as you pour, and you can learn how to stop just before the mess makes its way into the glass. With some experience, you'll leave maybe 1/4" of beer behind in each bottle and end up with a crystal-clear product in the glass.

I hope this helps, and WELCOME TO THE HOBBY!!

How long is your primary? I do a 10-14 day primary and a 2 week secondary - I usually have only about 1/8 inch cake at the bottom of secondary, and just a dusting in the bottles. A longer primary and careful racking will give you less sediment in the end product.

I've found that the longer the bottles have conditioned, the more beer I can evacuate before the yeast are aroused.

thanks for the advice. i think we'll try all of them. i think we've probably been to greedy trying to get the last bits of beer off the trub. also i bet if we kept them in the primary longer, we wouldn't get the 1-2" yeast cake that has been common in our secondary.
again, much obliged.

Wow 1-2" in secondary means you are racking too soon. You want the beer to drop clear in the primary fermenter before racking it to the secondary. If you can't see all the way to the trub looking through the top with a flashlight it's not ready to transfer yet.