Three Under my Belt but Still...

[Nicknack]

Now that I have three brews under my belt, I feel more comfortable about the process but still have some questions...

1. I was given the advice to use mesh over my auto-siphon to keep the trub from transferring from my primary to bottling buck. I had a good bit due in part to dry hopping in my primary. I tried this yesterday but the mesh kept the siphon from working properly; hardly any wort came through. I eventually just took the mesh off and did my best to keep the trub out. Thoughts? Any better way to keep the trub out?

2. The last three batches that I have done, when transferring the wort to the primary, I have seen virtually no undesirable "stuff" on the bottom. I've been told to try to keep the "stuff" out when pouring into the primary but I don't see any.

3. My last two batches, the SG was under the listed range for each. For example, the stout that I brewed the other night was 1.055 while the range was 1.057-1.062. What might be at play here? I'm brewing a 5 gallon extract kit using dry (re-hydrated) yeast.

 

[JawZziff]

1. try finding one of those clips that attach to your auto syphon. these clip to the side of your bucket and hold the syphon up off the floor of the fermentor so you can keep the end suspended over the trub. you lose a bit of volume in the end but less trub for sure.

2. that stuff comes from protiens clumping together from cooling your wort fast after the boil. how do you chill your wort? you might not be getting there fast enough for protein break to happen properly.

3. what temperature were you measuring the SG? check your hydrometer and find out what temperature its calibrated to and do the readjustment on an online calculator. this might just be the discrepancy you're looking for.

 

[Nicknack]

Ahhh... I actually have one of those clips now that you mention it. It's been sitting quietly in my closet. I completely forgot about it.

I cool the wort the old traditional way... throw it in the freezer. Just kidding... I take the 5 gallon batch and make an ice bath using a 20lb bag of ice.

The temperature is around 65 degrees. I'll test my hydrometer this evening.

 

[ncbrewer]

Some other thoughts:
1. In addition to keeping the tube off the bottom, be sure to use the "cup" that goes on the bottom of the tube - that helps. Tilting the fermenter a little and drawing from the lower side helps get all the beer out.

2. It seems like your ice bath should cool it fast enough to get some trub. But either way, the trub doesn't have to be kept separate - you can include it in the fermenter

3. If you did a partial boil and topped off with water, it probably wasn't mixed thoroughly enough to get a representative sample. With extract, you pretty much can't miss on OG if you use the right amount of extract and have the right volume. I stopped taking OG readings a few years ago.

 

[Nicknack]

What cup? I have this siphon.

 

[Vammy]

ncbrewer is referring to a small cup that fits the very bottom of your auto-siphon; I have the exact same siphon as you do, and here is a small "cup" that fits on the bottom. The idea of the cup is that you "should" be able to let the siphon rest on the bottom of the bucket, and this cup will prevent trub/yeast/whatever from entering the siphon. In reality (or at least in my reality ) the cup isn't tall enough to keep junk from entering the siphon by resting on the bottom of the bucket. I have the cup on my siphon, but still use the clip to keep it elevated off the trub. As the level of wort goes down and I can see where the bottom of the siphon is in relation to the trub level, I then adjust its height.

And, I tilt the bucket slightly once I make that adjustment. YMMV...

 

[JawZziff]

it's hard to see on that pic but I think it is there. right on the very bottom it comes with a little black cap that I've always just taken off and discarded... I never even thought you could leave it on lol!

 

[Vammy]

I was about to go find a pic that I could zoom on, but you have it right...I can see it in the OP's image too

To be clear, you certainly do not need the cup on when you siphon. I prefer it on, but I've misplaced the thing a number of times, only to find it after I was finished with the siphon

 

[BNolt17]

There are differing philosophies regarding trub and I'm in the camp of throw it all into the primary. I have read a few different experiments, one I can remember was from brulosophy.com, that suggested filtering/leaving "stuff" out of primary resulted in no difference in the final product. Additionally, I would not expect to get much "stuff" from extract.
As far as transferring, if you cold crash before siphoning it will pack down your trub, making a clean transfer a little easier.
Regarding specific gravity, I'm assuming you are referring to the gravity range for the style of beer. You should be able to use something like BrewersFriend to input your recipe and get the expected OG and FG. Or if you are using a kit it should give you the expected OG and FG. If you are not hitting those number then there is something off on your efficiency. Gravity should not be a range, it should be set.

 

[Nicknack]

Brewer's Best gives a range for the SG on their kits. The first kit that I used was a NB kit which had a stated SG of 1.043. I was pretty much on target at 1.044. The last two kits I have been .002 low.

 

[ncbrewer]

What cup? I have this siphon.

I hope you're taking the cup off to clean the auto siphon.

 

[Nicknack]

Well, no, since I didn't know it could be removed. Whoops. I didn't use it with my last batch being that I have a big mouth bubbler with a spigot. However, I did with my latest brew. Oh well... learn and live. Pile this one on all of the other mistakes that I've made so far.

When I get home this evening, I've got some cleaning to do!

 

[christyle]

If you have a bit of "junk" in your bottling bucket, no biggie, it's fine, homebrew will have this in it unless you filter the beer. As said, cold crash to the mid 30s to get as much as possibly to drop out and compact at the bottom. I've tried using a bag when bottling a fruit beer, and it does a good job of filtering, so much so that it prevents anything getting to the siphon as you've found. This can cause it to suck air past the plunger on the autosiphon and aerate your beer, far worse of an issue than a little trub in your beer. Your best bet is to siphon until you get near the trub, then slowly tilt and get the last of it until you start getting real cloudy. I stir my sugar in and then wait a few mins while i prep bottles to let some of that junk fall out to the bottom of the bucket.

Are you using a hop spider/bag/screen that you weren't before? Are you using whirflock/irish moss in old brews and not the recent ones? Were you stirring right before transferring, keeping that junk in suspension?

A few reasons have been mentioned for the low OG, but here is a list I can think of - Top up water not well mixed before sampling, more volume than the recipe called for (5.5 gal vs 5 gal in the recipe), maybe not steeping specialty grains enough, improper hydrometer reading (temp, bubbles, misreading scale, etc), not getting all the extract out of the container?

For what it's worth, I've never pulled that cup off to clean my autosiphon unless it got seriously clogged up. I pull the inner piston piece, rinse them both quickly, and im good. I always soak and run star san through the next time before using, never had a problem.

 

[Sailingeric]

I am not sure how much a 20 pound bag of ice would be but it would not take too much to offset the cost of a wort chiller. With my 25 foot copper chiller and some stirring I can get mine wort down to pitching temp in about 15 minutes. It is well worth the cost.