Question on Sediment

[davidamerica]

I have a question for you guys. I am on my 8th batch of beer and I wanted to try something that I never heard anyone mention nor have read about it.

Ok, so I brewed an American Chocolate Ale a few weeks ago and I want to try and limit the amount of sediment in my beer when transferring from my fermentation carboy / bucket to my bottling bucket.

I have done secondary fermentation and that sort of thing but I thought about using cheese cloth over the top of my bottling bucket as I am transferring. What do you guys think?


Thanks

Dave
:rockin:

 

[earwig]

If I am reading that right I believe it would cause excessive splashing and you would end up with beer that tastes like cardboard. You would be better off putting the cloth over the intake side of you siphon.

 

[trevorc13]

That would introduce too much oxygen. What I do is take a mesh hop bag and put it at the end of my racking tube. Place the tube and bag at the bottom of your bottling bucket. This will collect much of the debris that may transfer over without oxidizing it.

 

[Steelers77]

If you mean to strain the sediment, then no. You will aerate the beer which will lead to off flavors from oxidation.

Your siphon should have a cap on the bottom of it to limit the amount of sediment being transferred. If you do not have one you would look into the Auto-siphon, great tool and and the 1/2" model transfers beer really quick.

 

[Ace_Club]

No. That would aerate the heck out of that finished beer and you'd end up with an oxidized batch.

The best way to limit the transfer from primary to bottling bucket is to use a racking cane or auto-siphon with the little black filter tip on the end. Start it out about midway into the primary, and keep lowering it slowly as the level drops. When you get close to the bottom, tip the primary to keep a good level of the clear beer in the area of the racking cane/auto-siphon. Then, as the level gets close to zero, pull the racking cane/auto-siphon out to stop the flow as soon as you see sediment being pulled up into the tubing.

 

[D_Struct]

No. That would aerate the heck out of that finished beer and you'd end up with an oxidized batch.

The best way to limit the transfer from primary to bottling bucket is to use a racking cane or auto-siphon with the little black filter tip on the end. Start it out about midway into the primary, and keep lowering it slowly as the level drops. When you get close to the bottom, tip the primary to keep a good level of the clear beer in the area of the racking cane/auto-siphon. Then, as the level gets close to zero, pull the racking cane/auto-siphon out to stop the flow as soon as you see sediment being pulled up into the tubing.

This is exactly what I do, and I've had success, for what it's worth.

 

[Revvy]

If you opt for a long primary you will eliminate the need to filter.

This is my yeastcake for my Sri Lankin Stout that sat in primary for 5 weeks. Notice how tight the yeast cake is? None of that got racked over to my bottling bucket. And the beer is extremely clear.

That little bit of beer to the right is all of the 5 gallons that DIDN'T get vaccumed off the surface of the tight trub. When I put 5 gallons in my fermenter, I tend to get 5 gallons into bottles. The cake itself is like cement, it's about an inch thick and very, very dense, you can't just tilt your bucket and have it fall out. I had to use water pressure to get it to come out.

Ths is the last little bit of the same beer in the bottling bucket, this is the only sediment that made it though and that was done on purpose, when I rack I always make sure to rub the autosiphon across the bottom of the primary to make sure there's plenty of yeast in suspension to carb the beer, but my bottles are all crystal clear and have little sediment in them.

Half the time I forget to use moss, and you can't tell the difference in clarity.

Another thing is to leave your beer in the fridge for at least a week. The longer you chill the beer in the fridge, the tighter the yeast cake. I had a beer in the back of my fridge for 3 months, that I could completely upend and no yeast came out. Longer in the cold the tighter the yeast cake becomes. Even just chilling for a week (besides getting rid of chill haze) will go to great lengths to allow you to leave the yeast behind, but with only a minimum amount of beer.

The only filtering I've ever done has been through my kidneys.

 

[user 21663]

First make sure you are limiting the amount of sediment from the boil kettle to the carboy.

I don't know what kind of carboy you're using, but the Better Bottles have a nice little hump in the middle. I put my Autosiphon right on there and most of the sediment is below that level. And Steelers77 is right, the 1/2" as opposed to 5/16" is sooo much faster!

 

[Coldies]

My first batch was a heavily hopped IPA and when I racked to my bottling bucket I lined my bottling bucket with a 5 gallon paint strainer bag from home depot or lowes and added my boiled down corn sugar first then racked to the bottling bucket and when it was finished I carefully removed the paint strainer bag with all the hop debri in it. It also stirs your beer with the sugar as well when removing.