Racking

[ozpowell]

Well, the beers I don't rack come out pretty clear. I usually leave beers for 2 weeks in the primary. I use an auto-syphon to rack my beers to the bottling bucket where I bulk prime so I don't get too much trub in the bottle. I do rack some beers. For the first time in a long time I racked the Xmas case beer, a Biere de Garde - partly to see if it made any difference, partly as I wanted the primary space. I also racked a cider which is going to sit in secondary for several months. Anyway, I certainly don't think that racking is a problem if you want to do it, and do it carefully. I guess I'm just lazy.

Jye, I guess I should have known you'd pick up the reference. :lol:

Hey Stuster, could you give me some more information on your auto-siphon? I'm considering moving to racking, but am not keen on placing my mouth anywhere near something that will come into contact with the beer and am not overly keen on using a pump at this stage.

I've seen two types of auto-siphons, one with a hand-squeeze pump which starts the siphon and another called a "jiggle siphon" which, apparently you just need to jiggle up and down a couple of times to get it going. Both of these appear to be suitable for siphoning water, so I assume they're food-grade (though none that I've looked at explicitly say that). The one's I've seen were at BCF.

Of the two, my preference would be for the jiggle siphon simply because it seems as though it would be heaps easier to sanitize (provided it can be jiggled carefully enough to avoid any oxidation due to splashing).

I'd be interested in learning more about what you use.

Thanks,
Michael.

 

[bugwan]

Since I started dry-hopping in the keg, I hardly ever rack. Probably 1 in 4...

 

[Stuster]

One of these.

(I just use it with a hose, it doesn't come with the second bit of hard tube but this was the clearest picture a quick google could bring up.)

You can get them from your LHBS or they should be able to get them in for you. Should be around the $15-18 mark. I'm not sure about those jiggle ones. I just wonder if they can be cleaned internally all that easily. I've never used them though, so just something to think about.

 

[ozpowell]

Since I started dry-hopping in the keg, I hardly ever rack. Probably 1 in 4...

I just dry hop to the primary - are there problems with doing that?

Thanks,
Michael.

 

[Stuster]

No problem with doing that. Some people choose not to if they are going to re-use the yeast.