trub reduction

[Merleti]

What is the best way to limit the amount of trub when bottling.

 

[Hello]

Rack more carefully. I rack over the trub, once my racking cane/auto syphon starts to hit the trub, I tilt the carboy a bit. I get a little but not much. It settles quite quickly in the bottling bucket and depending upon how much I saw go into the bucket, I toss the last little bit of the beer. You don't want to jam your cane into the fermenter so it disturbs the trub either. If you do that, let it settle and then start again.

 

[flars]

There are several things I do to eliminate trub from the bottling bucket.

I don't stir up the trub layer by moving the fermentor to a new location in the days before bottling.

The day before racking to the bottling bucket I carefully tilt the carboy using a piece of 2x4.

Bought an auto siphon. Racking cane was nearly impossible to keep out of the trub without a second persons help.

I use a clip to hold the auto siphon away from the bottom of the carboy as I begin siphoning. This leaves me free to add the priming solution when there is a gallon or so of beer in the bottling bucket.

I painted the tip of the auto siphon white so I can hold it near the trub layer without picking up sediment.

I primary long enough to have a compacted cake in the carboy.

 

[um2uva]

You can always secondary for a week or two. It's an arguement you'll see a lot on here. That way, you take the beer off the trub, and then let whatever remaining sediment settle in secondary.

Personally, I've never racked a beer to secondary, but I'm planning on it this weekend.

 

[dstranger99]

^

This... Works well too !.........

 

[Newsman]

Cold-crashing helps as well. Drop temps down to upper 30's or so for 48 hours before bottling to help drop everything out and compact the sediment.

 

[BigFloyd]

Cold-crashing helps as well. Drop temps down to upper 30's or so for 48 hours before bottling to help drop everything out and compact the sediment.

+1 except that I crash mine for 5-7 days. Still plenty of yeast to bottle carb, but much less yeast trub in the bottom of each bottle. I'd estimate about 50-75% less trub.

 

[Ilan34]

±1 also, but lower that temp closer to 34 or so. More effective.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[HomebrewPadawan]

In the past I have been transferring to secondary, then cold crashing for a few days and then bottling. Worked great. Really clear beers!
I just recently switched to AG and I'm thinking about stopping that practice for a time or two and see what happens. I've read so much on "transferring to a secondary" and have found that many people are no longer transferring to a secondary (bright tank) in home brew applications for a couple of reasons:
1: ease, eliminating a step makes for a better brew day
2: risk of contamination, albeit a small one if you practice good sanitation, it is there non the less.
3: risk of oxidation, the worst case is the wet cardboard taste (but that takes a ton of oxidation), but lower levels will be considered "off flavors" too.
4: leaving it in the primary longer allows the yeast to finish their job and try and attempt to clean up any off flavors.

Like most things in homebrew, experiment, and see what works best for you. That's what I'm about to do!

 

[Merleti]

Wow great info guys. I've have several things to try. Thank you all for your input.

 

[petrolSpice]

Racking to secondary helps because everything that you suck up accidentally in the primary will become trub in the secondary, giving you another change to avoid it when racking into the bottling bucket. It's easier to avoid the small amount of trub that forms in the secondary. I find that the secondary really helps clear up the beer, more so than leaving it in the primary for an extra week or two.

Cold crashing works well too. I get mine down to 1C for a couple days, then rack it to the bottling bucket right away.

You could also try to filter the beer with a paint strainer bag when you transfer to the bottling bucket. This will help catch some of the large material like hops.

 

[BigFloyd]

Racking to secondary helps because everything that you suck up accidentally in the primary will become trub in the secondary, giving you another change to avoid it when racking into the bottling bucket. It's easier to avoid the small amount of trub that forms in the secondary. I find that the secondary really helps clear up the beer, more so than leaving it in the primary for an extra week or two.

Cold crashing works well too. I get mine down to 1C for a couple days, then rack it to the bottling bucket right away.

You could also try to filter the beer with a paint strainer bag when you transfer to the bottling bucket. This will help catch some of the large material like hops.

If you are able to cold crash the primary to 1*C and leave it there to complete (more than two days), you don't need a secondary or a paint strainer bag.

A 5-7 day crash will firm up the yeast cake enough so that you'd have to be pretty clumsy with the siphon to suck much of it up.