Racking question

[Zocken]

My first ever batch is fermenting away. I am at about T +36 hours and about 3 BPM. I am using the brewers best starter kit with a 5 gallon bottling bucket and a 6.5 gallon fermenting one.

Heres the question. When it is ready would it be a good idea or a bad idea to transfer the beer into the bottling bucket and leave it covered for a while whilst I clean and sanitize the primary and then rack it back in and leave it sit for secondary. The reason I am thinking of doing this is I got a good bit (maybe a 1/3 to half) break material in the fermenter and if I bottle it straight out of there it most likely will not be the clearest.


Thoughts?

 

[Baron von BeeGee]

Clarity is somewhat overrated which is to say by the time your beer makes it to bottles, if you're careful, you will only have an aesthetic haze at the worst. I'd just go from primary to bottling in this case, otherwise you'll lose some beer to all the transfers and increase your chance of flubbing something.

Is your bottling bucket really only 5g? If it's actual capacity is larger, you could use it as your primary and then rack to your 6.5g for secondary, and then back to the bottling bucket for bottling. If it is really only 5g you likely don't have the capacity to ferment in it.

Another option is to install a spigot on your 6.5g and use it as primary/bottling and use the 5g as secondary.

 

[Ol' Grog]

Get a glass secondary, you'll need one anyway down the road. The less you expose your brew to oxygen, the better. I'd leave it in the primary for two weeks and then rack to bottling bucket and bottle.

 

[Zocken]

a glass secondary is in the plans

 

[TheJadedDog]

I'd just leave it an extra week in the primary until you get a vessel for secondary; better to have some aesthetic haze rather than risk exposing your beer by racking it more than is necessary.

 

[david_42]

Leave it in the fermenter for 2-3 weeks, then rack it to the bottling bucket & bottle. Your brew can sit & clear in the primary just as well as a clearing bucket. It only means you have to be a little more careful in racking. I keg directly from the fermenter, typically after two weeks. (or a week after the ferment has stopped)