Racking Question

[rameses]

OK, I bottled my first batch of beer yesterday and ended up with 46 bottles. the whole process went smoothly (except for the mess I made!!). But even counting the spillage I had, I would have been a bit short of 2 cases of beer. When I was racking into the secondary, I had a LOT of beer left behind that I could not ciphon out (probably a half gallon). Is there a way to get the rest of my beer out of the primary?

I just brewed my second batch yesterday as well. I'm thinking I'm going to leave it in the primary until bottling so I don't lose any beer in transfer!

thx

 

[homebrewer_99]

Get an autosyphon. If it stops due to angle and depth it can be re-positioned and started again.

Actually, 1-2 days prior to racking/bottling you should learn to prop your primary/secondary up on a 2X4 to get the yeast to slide to the "deep end of the pool" so to speak. The extra time is needed for any re-settling/clearing in case it's moved around too much.

You also should start topping your fermenter off to 5.25 gals. This way any loss will still result in 5 gals being primed/bottled instead of 4.5 gals.

 

[malkore]

beer making inherently means you'll lose beer.

good racking practices will minimize loss during racking...but only to an extent.
you also have to remember that the more trub you dump into the bucket = less actual liquid volume to siphon off.

for this reason, many people aim for 5.5 gallon batches to ensure an actual final bottled/keg'd volume of 5gallons. of course you'd need a little more malt and hop bitterness to keep the recipe 'true' for the total volume, so this is more common for AG brewing than extracts...at least extract kits.

an auto-siphon helps some, as does tipping the bucket in advance to make the yeast cake slide to one side, then rack from the 'clean' side after tipping it the opposite way.

 

[rameses]

Good tips, thx! I'll definitely try the tipping tactic with this new batch.