Getting sludge at bottling time

[the-adjunct-hippie]

Just wondering how to combat this. I bottle from my fermenter and there's always a bunch of yeast sludge coming out. Do I need to run off the beer into a bucket until it's somewhat clean? I don't rack to secondary. How do the big breweries do it? Do they run a line from their fermenters to a bottling/kegging tank and then distribute the beer from there?

If I wanted to put it into another vessel, could I pour it in or do I have to run a vacuum line that pumps it out to the new bucket? How about for big 30+ gallon batches?

Thanks

 

[day_trippr]

Big breweries have bottom dumping fermentors.

Home bottlers rack to a bottling bucket...

Cheers!

 

[homebrewer_99]

Bottling bucket. Keep the racking cane off the bottom and only rack clear beer. Once you suck up even a little amount of yeast it all gets cloudy again. If you add an extra quart in the primary that volume can be halved when racking to the secondary and halved again when racked into the bottling bucket.

Don't take this the wrong way, but you just need to stop being so greedy about getting all the beer out of the batch. We've all been there. And we've all learned which process works best for us to achieve clear beer. Good luck.

 

[Bilsch]

IMO.. Bottling straight from the fermenter vs another transfer into a bottling bucket will give you minimized contact with the air, less damage from oxidation and a longer lasting fresher beer. I assume your bottling with some extract left (bottle spunding) or adding your priming sugar directly to the fermenter. And if doing that and carbonating in the bottle, you're going to get yeast in the bottle anyway so what's a little more if the beers benefit?

 

[hopularkid]

Use a bottling bucket so you know exactly how much beer you're bottling. There's no way to know the exact amount until it's racked off of everything. Now you know how much priming sugar to add.

 

[El Nino]

Bottling bucket, and lately I've been putting a strainer bag / rubber band over the siphon to filter out the dry hop particles. I got the bag from the nearby whole foods for just $2.50. Since I've been doing this, nothing but clear liquid in the bucket. Also have no longer had a problem with sludge clogging the siphon / bottling wand.