Beer Racking

[razE]

Hi guys,

First of all I am new to home brewing, have made 2 or 3 batches a very long time ago and on my 2nd recent batch now so i still have my "L plates" on . I want to rack my beer to my secondary but havn't been able to find a transfer siphon hose yet. Can i just use the tap on my primary fermenter to transfer into my secondary without causing any problems?

Thanks to everyone who helps me out!

 

[white.grant]

Yep. You'll want a metre or so of suitable hose that will fit over the tap spout and drain into the bottom of your racking barrel. You can also use this technique to bulk prime your brews before bottling, by racking onto the required priming solution.

Make sure the tubing is clean and sanitized (inside and out) as it will obviously be coming into contact with your wort.

cheers

grant

 

[razE]

Thanks mate, much appreciated! :super:

 

[Cube]

I find it easier to just put the hose on both tap ends and have the primary and racking cube on a bench top, side by side. Open both taps and then lower the cube slowly to the floor or chair and the beer will flow smooth and splashing of beer is minimal. Splashing beer = bad MMKKAYY.

 

[dingodidit]

Bunnings have clear silicon like hose in the irrigation aisle that fits over your taps, just grab one of their water drum taps to check the size while your there.

 

[OLDS2006]

The clear tube at Mitre 10 is a better option as the Bunnings stuff is hard to get the tape and stickers off.
Also you can buy by the metre instead of set lengths at Bunnings.
I`m not affiliated to either shops

 

[dingodidit]

Bunnings does suck doesn't it :angry: it's just ALDI for Outdoors

 

[DKS]

I use clear plastic tube, about 1500mm,that fits tight over a bottling fill stem ( 12mm ftom memory)Ive cut off 100mm or so off an old one This fits into your tap The other end you can then put on a bottling stem or leave open. I also use a 20 or 25lt square drum that holds sod met solution You can put it on there as well. When not in use fill the tube with solution and join the ends.Works a treat. :icon_cheers:
Daz

 

[antains]

Well, now, there's something I didn't pick up on when I racked, recently. I didn't use a hose and just let the tap run from my fermenter to the second fermenter. There has turned out drinkable, but, as I mentioned in another post, it's not the best brew in the world.

Thatnks to this thread, I will be trundling down to that horrible house of cheap, imported crap (Bunnings) to get a length of hose.


Thanks, folks,

Ant.

 

[white.grant]

Sometimes bubbles are good, sometimes bubbles are bad :icon_cheers:

 

[dbod]

Another first-time Secondary here. Just wanted to clarify the get-go with moving to a secondary.


I was going to move it over from Primary > Secondary (English Bitter, All Malt, bit of Crystal/Flavour hops, Safale s-04) to get it off the yeast cake and let it continue to brew for another week or two.

Do I simply transfer it across (using tube/splash caution) without adding anything?

I will be Bulk Priming eventually, so adding the dissolved dextrose just prior to bottling.

My confusion is over whether I should bulk prime immediately, or should wait until bottling time and whether it is bad to transfer to secondary without addition, thereby leaving a great big circle at the top of my brew exposed to Oxygen in the air???

Any racking/priming advice welcomed, cheers.

 

[Jase71]

A similar query is also on my mind, so I'll bang it onto this thread....... how long can the priming sugar be in the secondary tub before it needs to be transferred to bottles ? Ok, days might be a stretch, as I can imagine you don't wan't the carbonation process to begin only to lose your bubbles when bottling off, but it would be cool if it might be left long enough for some more of the sediment to drop out.

Othereise what ? Primary> Secondary> Priming> Bottling . That's a lot of to-and-fro, and yeast sediment in the bottles isnt really that bad to justify so much sanitizing ! Five washes over two tubs, plus the bottles !

 

[samhighley]

The yeast, having been through the primary fermentation process, will pretty quickly gobble up all that priming sugar, creating more alcohol in the process, and sending the CO2 out the airlock.

 

[Bribie G]

Typical example: I currently have a brew in secondary which I racked after about a week, and it's been in secondary for three days now. I brew in 30L fermenters and bottle to 24 litres (12 x 2L PET bottles) and accordingly I bought a 25L fermenter which you can get from Bunnings for about 15 bucks plus tap. So there is maybe 3 or 4 cm headspace.

I have a thick hose that fits the outside of the taps and before starting the flow I dissolved two teaspoons of gelatine in some off-the-boil water and poured it into the 'receiving' vessel, then put the tube in so it looped halfway round the bottom and started the flow. This caused a 'whirlpool' but no frothing. The gelatine mixed in fine as the bottom vessel filled, and will make the beer drop bright over a couple of days.

Because I am almost filling the bottom fermenter there is very little airspace and the 'tail end' fermentation usually flushes this small space with CO2

I gave it a two day 'diacetyl rest' - do a search if this is a new term to you - then bunged it in the fridge last night to get it really cold so I can add Polyclar (a clearing agent that removes chill haze and makes the beer more stable in the long run). I'm going to do the Polyclar thing tonight.

On Friday I'll take the 25L out of the fridge and bottle. With this brew I won't be bulk priming, I'll be using 3 old style sugar lumps per 2L PET. I occasionally bulk prime but find that the old sugar lumps work fine for me.

Now as you can see the reason I've racked is for the specific purposes of getting the beer off the cake, resting, fining and chill-haze clearing.

When I'm not interested in fining or clearing (for example my stouts) then I never just rack for the sake of racking.

If you are racking in order to bulk prime I would suggest you rack, bulk prime and bottle in one hit - half an hour and your'e done.

I get the point about doing a double or triple rack - I tend to find that with the normal homebrew fermenters we use, I get shrinkage then more shrinkage and before I know it I'm only filling eleven pet bottles for a brew instead of twelve. PITA.

 

[flattop]

Spoke to the bloke at the LHBS and he advocates against both Racking and Bulk Priming and gave his reasons, i will post them here and see what the consensus is...

1) When you rack doesn't it expose you to potentially more infections as the CO2 blanket gets lost and you are relying on a smaller fermentation to build that blanket in the secondary.....
2) When bulk priming how do you ensure that there is an even distribution of the sugar through the brew, i wonder if the sugar mix doesn't sink.

I understand the concepts of both processes and i can see arguments for both, but also negatives. BribieG seems to have a point that racking for purpose makes sense but racking for the sake of it

 

[Hutch]

There is plenty of advice in books and on the web preaching the merits of secondary, though I tend to agree with Jamil that it is just not necessary. If you want to condition your beer for an extra 1-2 weeks, just leave it alone in Primary. Better still, move your primary to a fridge and drop the temp down a few degrees to accelerate conditioning and yeast flocculation.

My experience tells me that I am making better beer having stopped transferring to secondary, and let's not ignore the time wasted cleaning, sanitising and transferring. The additional time in primary is too short to pose a problem in terms of yeast autolysis, and avoiding transfer to secondary will reduce the risk of oxidation due to splashing.

When it does come time to bottle, transfer from primary to a bottling bucket (second fermenter) and batch-prime. There will still be enough yeast in suspension to carb up your bottles, even after 2-3 weeks in primary.

My procedure these days is (once primary is complete) to drop the fridge temp down to 12deg for ales, or 7 deg for lagers. Leave it to settle for a week or 2 to condition, and drop out most of the yeast, and then keg it.
1 transfer only, and minimal sedimentation, though still enough yeast to carb up.

Hutch.

 

[Goofinder]

2) When bulk priming how do you ensure that there is an even distribution of the sugar through the brew, i wonder if the sugar mix doesn't sink.

Put sugar mix in bottling bucket/fermenter, add beer via hose that is looped on the bottom so it forms a whirlpool and mixes it all in.

I understand the concepts of both processes and i can see arguments for both, but also negatives.

Yep, there's always a risk of contamination if your sanitation isn't up to scratch, but I'm prepared to take that risk so I can play with my beer some more!

 

[Barley Belly]

The gelatine mixed in fine as the bottom vessel filled, and will make the beer drop bright over a couple of days.

Does this take all the yeast out as well and make it difficult to bottle-carb up??

 

[buttersd70]

1) When you rack doesn't it expose you to potentially more infections as the CO2 blanket gets lost and you are relying on a smaller fermentation to build that blanket in the secondary.....
2) When bulk priming how do you ensure that there is an even distribution of the sugar through the brew, i wonder if the sugar mix doesn't sink.

1/ ignorant scare tactics. If you fart whilst pitching your yeast, it will infect the brew as well. All beer is infected, to a degree. It is just a matter of how much. Beer is, surprisingly, not sterile.
2/ he obviously doesn't know much about how liquids mix. This point may be valid (sort of ) if you just chucked the sugar in dry.

 

[flattop]

1) could be scare tactics but i was trying to buy a 2nd fermenter for racking and he was trying to dissuade me, not good for his sales....also he is the LHBS guy, you kinda hope he is going to know his stuff, for the record i bought the fermenter anyhow but put on a 2nd brew.


2) I don't really know how liquids mix, but i do know that gravity pulls heavier matter downward so if the sugar/water mix is at saturation point the heavier matter will go downward eg; if bottling it would mean that the last bottles would be light on sugar and 2nd fermentation would be less effective. I understand this is not an issue for kegging.