Racking cane nightmare, help!

[avillax]

That's right, in order to bottle I was using a special bottling attachment on the spigot and discovered the attachment gets clogged and also when there's 1 gallon left it becomes almost impossible for beer to come out (seemingly not enough pressure)

So I bought the cheapest racking cane which has the same auto bottling safety on one side and it is extremely difficult to restart and also gets clogged on the auto-bottling safety, for this reason I used it to transfer the beer to a bottling bucket but it was going to be a bigger problem to use it for bottling, so again I had to use the same bottling attachment that is attached to the spigot and again the same problems, the last 10 beers had to be filled manually with a measuring cup which probably brought in so much oxygen (will that be a problem?)

Anyways, what solutions are there in the market?

 

[Rhumbline]

I think you need to be looking into why the racking cane is getting clogged. There shouldn't be that much gunk in the bottling bucket, you don't ferment in the bottling bucket, do you?

 

[bionut]

Are you using the bottling wand for racking (the thing with a spring that flow only when pushed)? For racking to my bottling bucket i use a simple hose, and for the pressure problem you should keep the fermentor on the table and the bottling bucket on the floor.
Anyways, the bottling wand don't clog so easily, did the fermentation stoped before you done that? it seems that you had a lot of yeast in suspension. When you rack the beer should be pretty clear.

 

[tnsen]

when I have a lot of hops in my 2nd...I line my bottle bucket with a lowes paint strainer then pull after rack...that way no hop particals clog mu bottling wand wich is a PITA......just saying......Tom

 

[dkeller12]

I am a little confused. So you are fermenting in your bucket with the spigot (bottling bucket) and then because you had issues bottling, you transferred it to your bottling bucket. Does this second bucket you transferred the beer to have a spigot or no?

I would ferment in a bucket that has no spigot, then transfer the beer to the bottling bucket with the spigot to bottle. When transferring you want to pull as little of the yeast cake as possible so you don't cause a clog in the tube. Then with a small piece of tubing connect the bottling wand to the spigot of your bottling bucket and you will not have any issues with filling all your bottles.

 

[whovous]

If you put the drawing end of the cane into the trub, it is going to draw trub into the cane, and clog same. Solution - Do not put the cane all way into the bottom of the bucket.

 

[ncbrewer]

I don't know if they all do, but some racking canes come with a detachable "cup" that goes on the bottom end of the cane. This helps minimize the amount of trub going into the bottling bucket. You still have to watch and adjust the depth to keep the trub out.

 

[avillax]

Yes I did a transfer to bottling bottle that also has spigot

 

[dkeller12]

Yes I did a transfer to bottling bottle that also has spigot

So it sounds like you need to be more careful about not hitting the bottom of the bucket with the racking cane. Here's something I did on my cane that may help. When the fermenter is empty, stick the cane down into the bucket along the wall of the bucket, then take a marker and mark a line on the cane at the very top of the bucket. When you are racking be aware of where that line is and if the line is close to the top of the bucket you know you are close to hitting the yeast cake. Trust me, it works great.