Best way to transfer to a secondary fermenter

I see a lot of talk about it not being necessary to do a secondary fermentation but I want to try it for myself so let's not get into the what's best..I'm just interested in trying it that's all.

Primary Imperial IPA / Barleywine (not sure yet) in Primary 3 weeks. I'm going to let it go one more week and ensure FG is stable.

I have 3 Glass Carboys so I'm going to move the primary to my counter attempting to not stir up any of the settled trub. Place siphon in carboy and a filter into the 2nd carboy to catch any trub that happens to make its way over.

Then, I'm going to add my dry hop bag to the secondary fermenter and ferment an additional week.


----

Is this the proper way or am I missing one of the steps? I know this is straightforward for most of you but is there a temp I should use? Extra sanitation steps other than star-sanning the secondary before transferring? Since my wort is now beer, I wasn't going to do any sort of crazy sanitation.

Thanks. reason for hyper-filtering is because my last primary only DIPA had lots of hops in the keg when I transferred and it kept clogging my dip tube.

Sounds good to me. Sanitize the secondary equipment and syphon and you're good to go.

why would you filter? You need some yeast to go in there. And I am not sure you would be able to push beer through a filter with a straight siphon.

I'm using this - http://www.midwestsupplies.com/stainless-steel-strainer-10-1-4-diameter.html

Pictured here when I first got my kit -

It's not a fine plastic / nylon filter. It lets quite a bit through.


This is my siphoning setup....and with that filter, I've been getting a ton of sediment in my kegs. two of my 4 brews had stuck dip tubes from left over hops

adamjackson said:

I'm using this - http://www.midwestsupplies.com/stainless-steel-strainer-10-1-4-diameter.html

Pictured here when I first got my kit -

It's not a fine plastic / nylon filter. It lets quite a bit through.

Click to expand...

I would be worried about oxygenating the beer through that.

So, I guess the question is. How do I eliminate any sediment or at least eliminating most of the sediment so I'm not getting a stuck dip tube in my keg for the first 25% of the beer I pull. Huge hop sediment in the last 15 or so pints of beer from my DIPA.

I definitely would not run it through a strainer. Lots of aeration is going to happen.

Longer primaries give you more compact yeast cakes, which give you less trub. Secondary again reduces trub quite a bit.

adamjackson said:

So, I guess the question is. How do I eliminate any sediment or at least eliminating most of the sediment so I'm not getting a stuck dip tube in my keg for the first 25% of the beer I pull. Huge hop sediment in the last 15 or so pints of beer from my DIPA.

Click to expand...

In short, careful racking will do it. You do NOT want to strain any beer once fermentation has started. That will oxidize it. Filtering is done under c02, in a "closed" system so that the beer can't aerate at all. Oxygen is the death of beer.

One tip- the night before you rack to the clearing vessel ("bright tank"), move it to the racking area so that the sediment can resettle after being moved. Then when you rack, start the siphon in the middle of the beer, and lower the racking can as the level of the beer lowers. Stop when you start sucking up yeast and/or other trub. That will really minimize sediment. Another thing that really helps- put the carboy someplace COLD for a couple of days before the final transfer to the bottling bucket or keg. That causes much more suspended stuff to fall out- some yeast, hops debris, proteins, etc, and will give you a clearer beer. Rack only clear beer, and package only clear beer, and your beer will have far less stuff in it.

Do you have a siphon clamp, so you can keep the auto siphon above the trub while racking? I bought one of these before bottling and it made it much easier. I transferred my 1st brew to a 2ndary, just to learn how to do it. it's easy and you'll get some stuff in the 2ndary.

Yooper said:

In short, careful racking will do it. You do NOT want to strain any beer once fermentation has started. That will oxidize it. Filtering is done under c02, in a "closed" system so that the beer can't aerate at all. Oxygen is the death of beer.

One tip- the night before you rack to the clearing vessel ("bright tank"), move it to the racking area so that the sediment can resettle after being moved. Then when you rack, start the siphon in the middle of the beer, and lower the racking can as the level of the beer lowers. Stop when you start sucking up yeast and/or other trub. That will really minimize sediment. Another thing that really helps- put the carboy someplace COLD for a couple of days before the final transfer to the bottling bucket or keg. That causes much more suspended stuff to fall out- some yeast, hops debris, proteins, etc, and will give you a clearer beer. Rack only clear beer, and package only clear beer, and your beer will have far less stuff in it.

Click to expand...

Excellent advice. Thanks!!!

i cold crash my beer at around 35 degrees for 4 days, longer if i forget or i'm to busy, and the yeast cake is like concrete on the bottom of the fermentor.

I use nothing but bottling buckets for fermentation. Siphoning is a pain in the ass, and the level of the valve on a bottling bucket is at the perfect place to leave the trub behind.

I've done a secondary for every batch I have ever brewed. I usually leave it in primary for a week, let everything settle, then rack to the secondary. It took some time, but I hold my racking can in the middle of the bucket about half way up, then I just watch the level in the bucket and lower the cane accordingly. You will get some sediment, but that will all settle in the secondary. Just make sure your hose touches the bottom of your secondary. you want the least amount of splashing as possible. If your carboys have the dimple in the middle (Like most wine bottles) When transfering from the secondary, the racking cane will sit on that dimple which is slightly higher that the sediment level in the carboy. perfectly clear beer every time, Well all but the first two batches where I was figuring all this stuff out

To keep hops out when siphoning I make a little filter out of plastic needlepoint "fabric". It comes in various mesh sizes - get the smallest. I tried a nylon bag over the end, but for me, that was a pain.

I cut a small square and then cut a tiny hold in the middle. I then slip this over the tip of the racking cane. You want this tight, so make the hole undersized. The "fabric" has some give so you don't need to be exact. Now place the end cap on the racking cane and slide the fabric down so it covers the opening between the cap and the cane. Sometimes It will leave gaps, so I'll take it off, flip it over and try it that way

Often the fabric piece will look like this below with the little flares pushing it into a bit of a cone shape resulting in gaps

___ .......____
.....\ .... /

The trick then is to flip it over and reinstall it carefully so the flare points UP the racking cane like this:

_____/.....\____

Now it will want to cone downwards and you can get a good seal against the end cap.

I had messed with trying to get the hole perfect, but then I had problems with the thing not staying in place. I might look to see if I have a forstner drill bit that is just a smidge undersized.

This works pretty well for both pellet and leaf hops. I doesn't stop the yeast or really fine particles

adamjackson said:

How do I eliminate any sediment or at least eliminating most of the sediment so I'm not getting a stuck dip tube in my keg

Click to expand...

Maybe try taking a piece of cheesecloth and a rubber band and fastening it around the bottom of your autosiphon? You could do it on the output tube, but I'd be worried about it getting plugged and being a mess to clean.

Are you going to be dry-hopping in a carboy? Let me know how that works out. I was never confident about my ability to get the hop bag in there without ripping it. I also didn't think I could get it out cleanly, until my daughter pointed out I could wait until after we'd bottled and the carboy was empty...

as Yooper mentioned Cold crash will help a lot of the issues. I typically dry hop with hole hops and cold crash and its pretty clean after the first pull. I filtered (Co2 transferred through a .2 micron filter) to clean keg and it was completely clear/clean. I would not filter as it strips some flavors from ales I think.

grimstuff said:

I use nothing but bottling buckets for fermentation. Siphoning is a pain in the ass, and the level of the valve on a bottling bucket is at the perfect place to leave the trub behind.

Click to expand...

Grim, +1

I do the same and wonder why they even have buckets without spigots. I have 3 bottling buckets so i can have 2 in primary and the third to transfer to bottle. Much easier

I rack from primary to a 'secondary' keg that has a shortened diptube (I cut off 1.5 inches). I condition that keg for about 2 weeks at room temperature. I then put it in the keezer and cold crash for at least 3-4 days. Sometimes I drink straight from that keg or if I have another primary ready I'll push the contents into a new keg. Works great for me as I can't stand sediment in my beer.

EdWort's Kolsch

Plus one for anyone who said using a piece of cloth over your siphon, works great.

Also would like to ask the question, does there need to be hops in your primary? Usually you can strain these when moving from your brew pot into your primary. At this stage fermentation hasn't started so you don't have to worry about oxidizing your beer. In fact it is healthy to introduce as much oxygen as possible during this phase. This process is called aeration. Just straining prior to the primary is sooo much easier than dealing with hops getting clogged in your siphon. Then i use a small hop bag to dry hop in my secondary if the style needs it.

Hope this helps and remember aeration = good, oxidation = bad

+1 on the siphon clamp, Yoops comment about starting high and working your way down.. and what others have said. Also, in your picture above, I would certainly raise the secondary so that the beer is NOT flowing down the sides of the secondary.. that's a great opportunity for oxygenation. Rather, have the tube, uncurled, at the bottom of the secondary. No splashing and minimal contact with the air in the carboy is a big key, IMO. I actually cut the end of my siphoning tube at a 45* angle and rubber band it to the end of another racking cane.. just to keep the never ending curl out of the tubing.. I've had no splashing since then. Another alternative is to have a short piece of vinyl tubing between the racking cane/autosiphon and another racking cane with the bend removed.. no worry about curl then. I'm just unwilling to scrap a good racking cane till the bend breaks.. therefore, the rubber band (sanitized, of course )

Another thing I do is to put a wedge under one edge of the bucket after I've disturbed it while moving to a siphoning location.. this causes the disturbed trub to settle a bit farther away from the edge where I'm siphoning from.. Later, gently removing the wedge to get the last bit of goodness out of the bottom of the bucket. Works for me.

You guys rock! So, I just moved it to the 70F closet to kick start those little buggers into eating more. I'm gonna keep it there for another week before transferring to secondary using the cheese cloth. GREAT tip and I have 40' of 5/16th tubing for my kegerator so I'll extend the siphon down into the carboy for the next transfer.

QUESTION: I thought aeration of the wort was good. Post Boil on transfer to primary, don't you want aeration? So a shorter siphon tube is good, right? It's just transfer to bottle / secondary / keg that you want to reduce the amount of O2 as much as possible, right?

So cold crashing is just sticking it at the bottom of my fridge for a couple of days before transferring to keg? That sounds easy enough.

adamjackson said:

r.

QUESTION: I thought aeration of the wort was good. Post Boil on transfer to primary, don't you want aeration? So a shorter siphon tube is good, right? It's just transfer to bottle / secondary / keg that you want to reduce the amount of O2 as much as possible, right?

Click to expand...

Correct. Aeration of WORT is good. However, if you are transferring from primary to secondary.. that is no longer wort.. it's beer.. unfinished beer.. but, still, beer. Air (O2) doesn't help beer

I misunderstood, sorry.. but, yes.. your photos look like transfer is Wort to primary.. good aeration is great there. I got confused with the pictures and your original question about secondary..

adamjackson said:

So cold crashing is just sticking it at the bottom of my fridge for a couple of days before transferring to keg? That sounds easy enough.

Click to expand...

Yep crashing is just that and helps a ton. You are essentially lagering it for a few days to clear it up, the yeast and particles fall out of suspension.