Sucking the last drops from the carboy

[FizorZed]

Hey, all. I have been getting into HB by brewing Brewers Best kits to get the feel for the process. I'm looking forward to doing some all grain recipes but in the meanwhile I want to get good technique on the mechanical stuff before going all out.

One consistent problems I have had is siphoning off all of the liquid from the glass carboy. I am using an auto-siphon. It works really well at getting 95% of the beer into the bottling bucket but always leaves a more than desirable amount behind sitting on top of the sediment. Past bloopers have included tipping the carboy trying to tilt the end of the tube into the side of the carboy but the result has just been a stirred up mess that had to be aborted.

The BB kits say they make 5 gallons but i've been consistently getting about 4.5 give or take. If I could get to the remaining liquid at the bottom of the carboy I would still be short the 5 gal mark but at least I would feel better about myself.

Also, where does all that liquid go? Evaporation? When it goes into the primary it's 5gal on the nose. I don't think we lose that much on the transfer to the secondary.

Thoughts?

 

[Golddiggie]

A good amount of us put a bit more into the fermenter than we're expecting to get back out... Such as 1/4-3/4 of a gallon more. That typically offsets the trub on the bottom, so we get closer to 5 gallons into keg/bottles.

I've found that if you leave the brew on the yeast a bit longer, the trub will compact better and you'll get more beer into your bottles. I'm leaving brews on the yeast cake for 4-6 weeks right now and getting solid results. So if you're only giving them a couple of weeks, or using the old primary/secondary method, try the long primary method for a few... Especially if you're brewing things using ale yeasts...

 

[quadbikerjosh]

agreed, i always add a half gallon extra to my fermenter. usually comes in handy for samples for gravity readings and such. the extra half gallon will barely affect your OG or flavors or anything. but i still add an extra pund of dme or a couple extra punds of grain for the hell of it. unless im trying to really follow an exact recipie or something.

anyway, more on topic. take a phone book, or a similar sized thing, and prop it under one side of the carboy BEFORE you even stick your auto siphon in there. also a racking cane clip helps here. but put your auto siphon in your carboy and sink it to the verry bottom edge and clip it in place so it doesent move. start your siphon, and as you get to the very bottom you can GENTLY move your beer to the racking cane before breaking the siphon. this especially works well with the auto siphon you have because you can start a siphon with only disturbing an insignificant amount of sediment. happy brewing!

 

[Arneba28]

. take a phone book, or a similar sized thing, and prop it under one side of the carboy BEFORE you even stick your auto siphon in there. also a racking cane clip helps here.!

Ok. Cane clips are great but an even better thing to do is to take steps before its even done fermenting. While your still in active fermentation, prop the carboy up a few inches on one side. Let it ferment like that. All the yeast will be compacted into a smaller area and minimizing the amount of wort that will be left on top of the yeast cake. That and letting it sit on the cake for a while to help let it settle and compact is what I do. Oh oh and a racking cane tip also tends to kill it. But that wont help with your sediment if the cake is not good and pressed down.

 

[ajwillys]

Ok. Cane clips are great but an even better thing to do is to take steps before its even done fermenting. While your still in active fermentation, prop the carboy up a few inches on one side. Let it ferment like that. All the yeast will be compacted into a smaller area and minimizing the amount of wort that will be left on top of the yeast cake....

Hey, that's genius!

Another thing that works wonders is cold crashing the beer hard. Once you are sure you're done with fermentation, drop the temp to near freezing as fast as you can (ales only). Leaving it near or at freezing (beer doesn't freeze at 32) for a week or so will greatly compact the yeast cake.

 

[quadbikerjosh]

great idea arneba! consider it done on my next batch tomorrow!

 

[FizorZed]

Amazing how a simple book under the carboy could solve all my problems. [Slaps forehead] Thanks for the advice, guys.

 

[hmmmbeer]

All great ideas! I seem to have adapted my brewing well after reading this. I also add just about half a gallon extra (5.5gal, 10.5 gal... etc).
I have the regular racking cane (you know, put in and suck, yeah I said it) and while my wort was still hot I stuck my racking cane in (give or take 6 inches) for about a minute then bent the end so it had a slight bend to it so I could get to the edge of the carboy and see it against the glass. That makes it easy to tell how close you are to the yeast cake as well as limit disturbing your yeast when you get close.
Another trick I used was cutting a 2"X4" into a 4" long block, cutting about an inch off the width (so its really a 2"x3") then leaving about 3/4" of an inch and cutting a 45 degree angle. I then put some rubber sealant onto the top 3/4" and the whole bottom of the block for anti-slide surface. Bam, you have a prop-er. I highly suggest you use 2 of these just to make sure its stable.