Filtering when bottling

[JutyL]

Hoping for some helpful advice. I have recently just brewed my first all grain batch of beer after trying a couple of kits and I am coming up to bottling stage. I have one bucket for fermentation which I have finished dry hopping in and am now ready to bottle. My bucket has a tap on which I attach my bottling wand to but as this is the only bucket I have fermentation and dry hopping has been done in this too.

Each time I have taken a sample from the tap to check gravity there has been quite a lot of sediment/trub coming through so am worried that when I bottle I will get a lot of it coming through into the bottles.

With the original kit I bought there was a nylon bag which I have previously attached over the end of the wand that goes into the bottle to do some filtering.

Is this process ok to follow or does it risk any issues with the bottle conditioning? Are there any other suggestions on how not to get my bottles full of trub? I have bought a syphon but would ideally prefer to use the wand when bottling. Thanks

 

[SchweikhardBrewing]

It sounds like you have one bucket that has the spigot that you are using for fermenting and bottling? If that's the case, it would be helpful if you get a second bucket. They're relatively cheap. I recently bottled a peach IPA that was dry hopped and there was a LOT of trub and peach crap floating around. I racked from my primary bucket to my bottling bucket with a small muslin bag tapped to the end of my syphon tube like a condom. I worked perfectly collecting all the sediment!

Now you obviously can't do this since you only have one bucket but there's more than one way to skin a cat. I'm all about minimal equipment, sometimes you have to get creative. You can do what you described with the nylon bag over the bottling wand. The only potential problem I see with that is if it collects enough trub that you can pull the bag back out of the bottle. If you want to go that route, you may have to empty the bag every so often.

Another option could also be to just find something you already have that you could temporarily rack the beer to like your boil kettle or a cooler. Once you rack it filtering with your nylon bag, clean the bottling bucket, sanitize, rack back in there, and bottle.

I'm interested if anyone else has ideas.

 

[JutyL]

Yes that is the plan for my next brew is to get a 2nd bucket to ferment in then to transfer to this one as a 'bottling bucket'. I think I will need to continually empty the nylon bag as you say unless any other advice is thrown out there. I have tried looking for answers on this and people seem to often mention the risk of getting oxygen in the beer when filtering would this nylon bag process risk this do you think? Don't want to risk ruining the whole batch although didn't notice any big flavour problems when I used it on the kits before.

 

[morbster]

I would not want to risk severely oxidizing my beer by trying to filter it.

Have you considered cold crashing the beer to help settle out any trub and compact the yeast layer? Sticking it in the fridge or around the mid 30s for a few days will really help reduce the junk you pull up with your beer.

 

[JutyL]

I do have a fridge now that I can put it in but do you think it would lower the level that much that it wouldnt come out? I am also going to need to prime into here and then let it settle again so it will get churned up a bit anyway I imagine. Once the pouring starts the beer going through the filter will be submerged as the bottle fills so is it that high a risk?

 

[violinguy]

Filtering can cause oxidation. I sometimes use a metal strainer when transferring to primary because I want that o2. Not so with bottling. Cold crashing will clear your beer right up. And, you'll be surprised at how much clearer your beer will be after 3 weeks conditioning.

 

[Coathanger]

I would just sanitize another container (like your kettle maybe) and try to siphon into there first. May get lots off trub off the hop (so maybe filter first little while?) but then after it should clear up. Then bottle from there.

 

[mongoose33]

When I transfer from my fermenter I always put it up on a table and let it sit for 20 minutes to a half hour to let anything I stirred up settle down again. Then, when i open the spigot I draw off maybe half a glass of beer to clear the spigot area of yeast/trub. Then the rest goes into the keg (in your case, either a bottling bucket or bottles).

Cold crashing does seem to help in compacting that layer. I'm attaching a pic of a beer I racked last night showing where the trub/yeast layer is in relation to the spigot. Once I cleared the trub/yeast that settled inside the spigot (and you can't really avoid that), it ran clear.

 

[JutyL]

Thanks for the advice all. I decided to go ahead with bottling using the nylon bag to filter with a 'you live and learn' attitude being my first try at all grain. As mentioned above after the first couple of bottles it seemed that it was a lot clearer so removed the filter for the rest. The last few bottles have some floating bita though but hoping they will just settle and stick to the bottom when pouring when the beer is chilled 🤞Will definitely have a 2nd bucket for my next one and have a fridge to build into a fermentation fridge shortly so will definitely use the cold crash for that one! Lets see how this batch turns out!

 

[masskrug]

I soak a nylon bag and a zip tie in Starsan. I attach the bag to the siphon hose wand (The end you stick in the fermentation bucket). I've had no issues.

 

[popsicleian]

I bottle right from primary all the time. Cold crashing helps a lot, and I also put something under one side of my fermenter during fermentation to tilt all the yeast and trub away from the spigot side. I just run the bottling wand into a glass until it starts coming out clear, then start filling bottles.