Filtering

[mfuller87]

Hi, my name is Mike. Myself and a friend are new to brewing. We've brewed two batches so far and are starting to get the hang of it. One thing that's bothered me so far is loss of a decent amount of beer when bottling because as you get to the bottom of the batch all of the gunk builds up and we don't want that in our bottles so we stop when too much starts creeping in. Has anyone come up with a way of filtering out the beer from the gunk in order to get as much of the beer as possible? I feel like we leave a bottle or two worth of beer because we can't keep the gunk out.

 

[aludwig]

Unfortunately the trub at the bottom is just part of the game. You did the right thing by stopping when you did. You could scale your recipe to target 5.25 gallons finished product knowing you will lose that last 1/4 gal, but most people just live with the loss.

 

[aludwig]

I guess I should also say that there are ways to filter it, such as using a house water filter or plate filter, but you will still lose beer and they can get spendy.

 

[mfuller87]

Trub, yeah that's it lol. I haven't learned all the terminology yet so excuse my ignorance in saying gunk repeatedly. Thank you for responding. It's not a huge deal, but I just want to utilize as much as possible if it's doable. I've done a pretty good job of keeping the trub out when bottling, but it does manage to creep in some in the last few bottles when nearing the end of the bottling bucket. So far we haven't done a 2nd fermentation though, and I've read that that helps to filter out some of the trub from the 1st fermentation. We're planning to make a batch this weekend where we'll do a 2nd fermentation for the 1st time so in a few weeks we'll see how much it filters out when we transfer to the 2nd carboy.

 

[sww35]

I marked my last few beer bottles that I thought were taking in an excess amount of trub and bottled them as normal. This way, I know that when it comes time to pop them open, to filter them when pouring them into my beer glass. Just an idea for you maybe.

On a side note, when you transfer to the 2nd carboy, is one supposed to leave the trub behind and if so, will some yeast be lost in doing so?

 

[willness33]

On a side note, when you transfer to the 2nd carboy, is one supposed to leave the trub behind and if so, will some yeast be lost in doing so?

Short answers, yes and yes. There's still plenty of yeast transferred to keep doing it's job.

 

[lgilmore]

Use a secondary and cold crash the secondary before bottling. You are using a bottling bucket yes? While there are a lot of opinions on the use of a secondary or not, using one works for me. You see I don't want to try and "not" suck up the trub when bottling.. I want to get rid of the trub long before that. That's where the secondary comes in with cold crashing. Instead of trying to fill the bottling bucket from a tub with a couple inches of trub in it, I fill from a secondary where I have 1/8inch of trub to deal with. If you want clear beer give it a try.

For those who worry that the yeast won't be there to carb up, don't worry, there's still enough yeasty beasties to do the job. Just add a couple days onto your conditioning. You'll end up with carbed beer that is very clear.. also find the sticky on bottling and read all of it. It is a great education.

 

[billl]

Trub is going to sink to the bottom. There really is no way around that. The more compact that trub is, the more beer you'll be able to get out before you start sucking some of it up. There are really 1 ways to compact it:

1) Just let it sit there and let gravity slowly work on it.
2) Crash cool it to give gravity a helping hand.

 

[unionrdr]

You say you try to avoid the trub in the bottling bucket? You should leave the trub in the fermenter. I leave mine in primary 3-7 days after FG is reached to let it settle out clear or slightly misty. Then rack to bottling bucket & priming solution,stopping the siphon when it gets down near the trub after tipping slightly to get all but a small amount out. I stop when the trub just starts to get in the racking tube.
Your bottled beer should then clear up in a few days as it conditions.

 

[TopherM]

The stuff at the bottom of each bottle after carb and conditioning isn't really trub, it's mostly yeast. When you bottle, the yeast are in suspension. Those yeast eat your priming sugar and multiply, so not only do they settle out of suspension to the bottom, but there's alot more of them by the time carb and conditioning is complete. You will never fully eliminate the yeast at the bottom of each bottle as long as you are bottle carbing. If you filter out the yeast, then your beer won't carb. Even commerical beers that are bottle conditioned have a small yeast cake at the bottom.

The only way to eliminate this is to bottle from a keg, hense all of the beer guns and counterpressure bottle filler out there for sale. I bottle from a keg when I enter competition beers. Otherwise, I just accept that I'm not going to pour the last 2-3 ounces of each bottle.

 

[unionrdr]

With my method,I get all but the last 1/8" from the bottle.