Half full secondary ...

[JeffStewart]

I've been trying to find this on the forums but nothing specific.
I racked a english bitter to my 5 gallon secondary today and because the siphon just quit on me, I only got the secondary about half full.
Should I just go ahead a bottle to negate as much oxidation as possible?

 

[dcp27]

I'd bottle. Assuming you moved it to secondary just to clarify and that you have a stable FG, theres no reason not to. However, if your siphon quit on you, how you gunna fill bottles?

 

[RMitch]

^West Medfid born and bred, FTW

Is siphon broken, or you just got air in the lines?

 

[JeffStewart]

I just got air in the lines took the siphon out twice to re prime it but after that got fed up and didn't want to risk contaimenating it by touchin the hell outta it. Going to invest in auto siphon. I just looked at the airlock and it's bubbling a bit. I do have my gravity I was aiming for.

 

[dcp27]

It'll take time for oxidation to hit. I'd go get an auto-siphon and either finish racking or bottle it up. If you weren't planing on more than a several week secondary then I'd just skip it since its a rather useless technique otherwise (I prefer longer primaries, same clarity, better conditioning, less risk).

 

[JeffStewart]

ok, thanks. I think I'm going to just bottle it. I've already got the bottles sanitizing. I got a bottling bucket but that damn siphon .... man it pisses me off. Oh well..... auto siphon is the next purchase.

 

[aggiejay06]

Is your primary a bucket or carboy? If it's a bucket here's a random thought to maybe salvage some of your loss:

Bottle the stuff you were able to siphon out and put it aside. Sanitize a large pitcher or bowl or something that you could gently scoop out the remaining beer from primary and gently pour it down the wall of your bottling bucket as you hold it at an angle. Shouldn't splash too much. Then you could bottle in in it's own half batch and set it aside. Maybe it's junk in the end, but maybe it turns out all right.

Whatever you do remember to cut your priming sugar in half.

 

[JeffStewart]

Primary is a 6.5 glass carboy. I couldn't try and pour that thing steady if I wanted to. I just finished cleaning it out. No biggie I guess. I just learned (again) that I need to get an auto siphon. The plastic "stick" and tubing is too irritating to be used in a hobby. Beer actually turned out really nice though. Better than I thought it would. It's my first recipe from scratch so I'll definitely enjoy drinking it even though it'll be about have the quantity I was brewing for. Oh well, brew more.

 

[JebCkr]

You can get a longer siphon and put whatever you're racking from on something a little higher up. The longer fall will create a better siphoning action so you won't have to deal with those air pockets.

Oh, and was it half full or half empty? Hehe, cheers for being an optimist.

 

[JeffStewart]

Yea, I have the one vessel sitting higher than the other. Just dealing with it is too aggravating and doesn't make messing with it enjoyable. I HAVE to get an auto siphon for my sanity's sake. Bright side is, it does tastes amazing. Only got 19 or 20 pints out of it though.