How to rack to secondary

There might be a thread on this already, but when I searched all the hits were for when or should I rack to secondary - I can't really find any directions on how to rack to a secondary.

I know how to use the autosiphon, how not to splash into the carboy, and that I need to keep oxygen exposure to a minimum - my main question is: how do I keep as much sediment and dead yeast from transferring as possible, how low do I take the level of beer before stopping the siphon?

I have seen many poeple on the forums discuss using a sanitized scrubby pad as a filter. This should keep the sediment amount transferred to a minimum.

I don't think you need a filter. Just hold the end of the syphon tubing about an inch off the bed of sediment, or bend the end of the cane up so that it can rest on the bottom but pulls from just above the sediment.

Edit: The real trick is to move the carboy well in advance of racking so that it has a chance to settle aging. Better still rack from when it has been sitting throughot primary...

During the primary, I always put a couple rubber door stoppers under one end of the carboy to get a slight angle. As the yeast settles, it will gather mostly on the lower end.
When I rack it, I put the auto-siphon on the high side all the way down to the bottom. I then let it transfer until it stops siphoning the wort.
I follow the same procedure for the secondary, and so far have had good luck getting clear beer in the end.

No matter what you do, the man thing is don't be greedy. When you try to suck up that last little bit, you will also get some trub. I think it is better to throw away a beer or two to have quality beer instead of quantity.

Well, any normal racking tube has a racking adapter on the end, so no bending is required.

The cuts in the sides of these ones are somewhat unusual, and I don't think that they are beneficial, but it shows the general concept:


For normal fermentations, the racking adapter provides enough stand-off from the bottom so that you don't get much if any of the lees. The big deal is not to stir anything up - if you need to move the fermenter to siphon, do so days ahead of time, and don't stir things up by moving the racking cane around.

If your lees are unusually thick, try to stay 1/4 inch or so above them - easier to see in a carboy than a bucket. If you keep the racking cane still, you won't get too much even with thick lees, as the immediate area (a small cone above the end of the cane) will get sucked down in, but the bulk of what is on the bottom will not.

I put a mark on my autosiphon that I line up with the top of the carboy, this will put the bottom of the autosiphon 1 inch off the bottom.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Should I use the grain bag as a filter to weed out any large floaters?

Keep it simple and just go with the basic equipment for your first time. Since you are using a secondary you will get nice clear beer. I never use any filter and can read the paper through my beers. Just try not to suck up a whole s#$t load of trub. Even if you do, you are only getting a little extra yeast into the secondary that will keep cleaning up the beer. they will settle out too. When you rack to the Bottling Bucket is when you really want to be concerned about not picking up too much Trub. Of course this in only my opinion and you know what people say about opinions...