Interesting little problem: spigot on primary

[Just-a-Guy]

I thought I was being clever, I bought an extra spigot (two actually, I did this to two buckets), drilled a hole and installed it on my fermenting bucket. One at about the 4 1/2 gal level, the other a little lower. Brewed up an IPA (True Brew kit) om 2/11 and put it in the bucket.

I've been taking out small samples about once a week by pouring from the spigot into the hydrometer tube. It has seemed awfully cloudy, and the SG won't get below 1.020. Odd.

Today I decided to rack it to a secondary (5 gal carboy). After I finished that, I went to clean the bucket, and found that the inside area of the spigot inside the bucket had a ton of crud (trub, sediment, whatever it's called) in it. No wonder the samples were cloudy (and heavy). Hm. Took me a couple of minutes with the spray nozzle to get it all out (then of course a full cleaning).

Pic attached. Was this just a dumb idea, or is there a fix?

TIA,

Mark

 

[IrregularPulse]

wine thief= solution.

or during fermentation, prop the bucket up with a small wedge under the spigot. Gravity will then handle keeping the trub out of that spigot as things settle.

 

[RandomBeerGuy]

Just an Idea for stuck SG. My buddy had that issue in the beginning of his brewing career. What he does is gently rotate like making a whirlpool effect. To wake the yeast up and force them to eat more sugars. Maybe if you gently disturb them they will take you down to 1.009.

 

[bomberman]

That is an interesting idea! I have a Cooper's plastic FV with a built in bottling spigot and they recommend drawing out about half a hydro tube's worth of beer to clear out all the built up trub, dumping it, then filling it with a sample to test SG. It wastes a little bit extra, but it is an easy solution and I usually only check the gravity one or two times throughout fermentation so I don't consider it to be much of a loss.

I also second RandomBeerGuy's solution to try rousing up the yeast to drop a few more points off, maybe even moving it to a place that's a few degrees warmer if possible.

My eyes wandered to the pic first and I was wondering how on Earth you managed to bottle with a spigot like that!

 

[unionrdr]

I remember that Cooper's thing about dumping the 1st lil bit to clear out the spigot. I don't bother,since I strain all into the FV anyway. And the spigot is translucent enough to see anything in there. Plus I get very little trub to start with.
And that spigot is at the right hieght for the krausen to leave that sticky funk in it,which it seems to have done. But covering it with a blanket or old coat should be enough to raise the temp slightly to knock off tha last few points.

 

[bomberman]

That's a good point, unionrdr. I've noticed that many beers don't require me to clear out the spigot before taking a reading, especially if they were strained going into the fermenter. I just mentioned it because OP seemed to be concerned it was messing with his readings and it seemed like a decent solution. Now that I think about it though, I think I remember reading that trub won't affect hydrometer readings, so really I suppose it isn't necessary at all.

 

[BradleyBrew]

I like the idea. But you will get a lot of stuff" in there from the fermentation.

 

[unionrdr]

I don't get much trub in there,if any at all. So that statement isn't completely valid. That's why I use hop/grain bags,& strain all into primary. Less trub at bottling time,so the spigot stays very clean. But I hear ya bomberman.

 

[Just-a-Guy]

Thanks for the responses, folks.

Unionrdr -- Can you give a little more detail about what you do? Do you mean that after the boil, going into the FV, you strain the wort before pitching? So...this would get out any residual stuff from the grains and/or hops used in the boil? Is that the idea? So the beer is clearer going into the fermenting bucket?

And then you have spigots like the one I am using, but you don't get the trub problem in the spigot?

And the spigot(s) on yours are lower?

 

[GoldMiner]

I use a paint strainer bag over the primary fermenter and pour the wort in and then pull out the paint strainer.

It's pretty effective on cutting down trub.

 

[CPFITNESS]

i think it's not a bad idea but the spigot is just a little bit high so your probably getting the krausen as someone mentioned. if it were a bit lower probably a non issue. or you could just go with a thief as others mentioned