Siphon or just dump it in?

I'm an apartment brewer and use two 20 litre pots to brew. I have been siphoning my beer into my fermenter from the pots once the wort is at fermentation temps to avoid all of the crud at the bottom. I could easily just pour the cooled wort through a strainer right into my bucket.

Does this really make a difference? Have been more of a fussy bugger than necessary all these years?

Looking to gauge general practice, not start a battle royale on the topic. Will keep my head down regardless.

Cheers

I don't strain or siphon, I just sort of drain most of it to the fermenter and if there is a ton of sludge in the bottom I stop when there are big chunks or tons of debris- but mostly it all goes to the fermenter.

I line my fermenter with a mesh bag and dump the wort in. Then I lift the bag out and let it drain. Its amazing how much crud you will collect. I'm happy with the results.

Dumping the wort in thru a strainer will mix oxygen into the wort...which is a good thing before fermentation.

I use the strainer method as well. Catches a lot of the garbage and gets the oxygen in there too. Solid method.

I'm with yooper on this--just dump until I'm about to get a bunch of crap at the bottom of the kettle. Pouring helps to get more O2 into the wort (as would a strainer).

Either way , dump or strain, the crap will settle out

For my first 6 batches I siphoned but with this last one I just poured directly from the pot into the fermentor leaving a good portion of the hot and cold break behind. I don't know why I never thought of this before but it seems like a good idea to avoid pouring through a strainer or siphoning because those could possibly contaminate the wort.
I've never had a bad batch due to contamination but the likelihood probably goes up with each instrument you introduce after it has cooled (I do stir it around with a sanitized spoon though).

I've taken a mantra from a lot of the brewers on HBT that basically goes "brewing should be easy, so don't make it more complicated!"

I'm sensing a theme here ...

Thanks for all of the input. Siphons are for kegging!

Good advice. I am sure to sanitize the strainer before use, but that is an easily overlooked step

I use one of these.

atom said:

I use one of these.

Click to expand...

that looks amazing!
will it fit on a 6.5 gallon better bucket?

Dump it. Simple. If you are making a light coloured beer, you might want to consider whirl pooling and syphoning to leave behind the trub. But cold crashing works great as well.

Yooper said:

I don't strain or siphon, I just sort of drain most of it to the fermenter and if there is a ton of sludge in the bottom I stop when there are big chunks or tons of debris- but mostly it all goes to the fermenter.

Click to expand...

jro238 said:

I'm with yooper on this--just dump until I'm about to get a bunch of crap at the bottom of the kettle. Pouring helps to get more O2 into the wort (as would a strainer).

Click to expand...

Me too. If there isn't much trub it all goes into the fermenter. It there is a lot of trub I leave it behind. Usually it all goes in.

when I brewed extract I dumped it all in, now I have the luxury of a ball valve and dip tube. after a good whirlpool, and coil cooling, I leave behind about 0.4 gal of an 11 gal batch in the kettle, and it is nearly saturated with trub. if I brewed with pellet hops, which I do not, I would cut the flow from the kettle as soon as the sediment started to leave the kettle and adjust my recipes for more yield if necessary.

NewJersey said:

that looks amazing!
will it fit on a 6.5 gallon better bucket?

Click to expand...

yes it will.

atom said:

yes it will.

Click to expand...

NICE! thank you.
i'm ordering a few

aparently they come in 200 400 and 600 micron, us plastic sells them starting at 4.61 cool idea
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=24071