Racking

[jmtonkin]

I'm getting ready to rack my wheat beer into a secondary with some frozen strawberries! My question is this: when racking, do I leave behind the trub that's settled? If I do, won't the yeast be left behind?

 

[EJay]

The whole point of racking is to leave the trub behind. There's plenty of yeast in suspension so don't worry about that. You can't rack enough to get rid of yeast. You'd need filtration or a real long amount of time for that (many months at least).

 

[cannman]

YES! Leave it behind! We WANT to get the beer off the trub.

Assuming you have already hit pretty close to your FG, there will still be plenty enough yeast floating in the brew to finish up and carbonate when you bottle (you wont be able to see most of it).

You can save the yeast from the primary and reuse it later (Save $$$). Do a search for "Yeast Washing" Good luck!

 

[jmtonkin]

That's what I thought, but the fiancée didn't think so! Just checking! (For the record, I've always left the trub behind, but since this is the first time ever using a secondary, I wasn't sure either!)

 

[aprichman]

Even the most flocculant strains don't need any extra trub or yeast sitting on the bottom. Many people cold crash their beers dropping even more yeast out of suspension and still carbonate bottles just fine.

Beers that have been aging for awhile or that have a high ABV might need some new yeast added to the bottling bucket but you would still want to avoid the trub / dead yeast at the bottom of the carboy.