Primary Fermentor Question

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

plumtired

Active Member
Joined
Aug 18, 2006
Messages
26
Reaction score
0
Hello all,

Ran accross this board about a week ago and I have learned a lot. I am from Michigan and am new to brewing. I plan on starting next weekend. I am going to start with a Brewers Best kit - American Cream Ale.

My question is with the primary fermentor. Is it best (or does it not matter) if the primary has a spigot on it? I have both (along with a 5 gal carboy for secondary) and I was planning on using the one with the spigot for the primary, but then I read somewhere that would not be a good idea.

I would appreciate any thoughts. Would also appreciate any words of wisdom about my first brew choice.
 
The one with the spigot is a bottling bucket. You can use it for a primary, but if you don't have a secondary, then you'll run into issues come bottling time.

If you only have the two buckets, one with spigot and one without, then use the one without as your primary fermenter. After fermentation, you'll siphon the beer to the bottling bucket, and hook your bottle filler up to the spigot.

BTW... Good luck on your first batch. It's not as difficult as it seems at first, and once you get the whole routine down it's a lot of fun.
 
you don't want to use the spigot in the primary (or secondary) because of the trub. All of the spent yeast and hops/grain pieces will sink to the bottom. You want to leave as much as that stuff in the primary as possible so using a spigot would probably do the opposite (that or it will just clog the spigot). siphoning the beer and leaving as much solid matter as possible is what you want to shoot for.
 
I have one with a spigot and I use it all the time for the primary and bottling. The bucket I have has the spigot at least 3/4" off the bottom. It works well when you transfer to the carboy. You can tilt the bucket if it has too much left over. When I bottle I usually have to tilt it a little.

Buckets are cheap, buy one or try it with the one you got. Its not too big of a deal.

Make sure you disassemble and remove the spigot every time you sanitize - Run sanitizer through it to flush out anything nasty.
 
I've currently got that same Cream Ale sitting in my secondary. I also used my bottling bucket as my primary. I then used the spigot w/hose to rack to my carboy. I was previously very careful to leave as much trub as possible in the brewpot. Therefore, clogging the spigot wasn't an issue.

Now to hijack your thread a bit. :cross: I had this cream ale for a week in the primary and now a week in the secondary. I've got a party coming up next month and would really like to have this conditioned by then. Since there has been no airlock activity in over a week, any problems with bottling now? 1-1-3?

Thanks (and good luck with your first brew, plum)
 
All of my buckets have spigots, I use them for fermenting & clearing and only rarely have trouble with trub. The internal pipe can be rotated up or down, depending on how much trub I expect.
 
fezzman said:
Now to hijack your thread a bit. :cross: I had this cream ale for a week in the primary and now a week in the secondary. I've got a party coming up next month and would really like to have this conditioned by then. Since there has been no airlock activity in over a week, any problems with bottling now? 1-1-3?

Thanks (and good luck with your first brew, plum)

You'll be fine. If anything, you might end up with a little bit more solids on the bottoms of the bottles, because you won't have as much time in secondary for settling (which is much of the reason for "secondary" anyway). The beer, however, should be fine. My first brew, Senor Cardgage's Cinnamon-Basil Ale, was racked as soon as it flocculated, and bottled several days later. 5 days after that, we drank it. It was excellent stuff---the only thing I noticed was a little bit of yeasty notes on the palate. However, with 3 weeks in bottle, that should settle out---as long as you instruct your party guests to leave the final 1/4" of beer in the bottom of the bottle.
 
david_42 said:
All of my buckets have spigots, I use them for fermenting & clearing and only rarely have trouble with trub. The internal pipe can be rotated up or down, depending on how much trub I expect.

Hehe, I tried that with my mango-peach wit. Ended up racking instead. After dry-hopping in secondary w/ peach and mango slices, the chunkies tended to clog up the spigot.

In fact, I prefer to rack from primary exclusively, even if I'm using a bucket w/ spigot.
 
Back
Top