Racking to secondary in order to get more beer?

[evbrewco]

I've read a lot of cons to racking to secondary unless you're actually fermenting in the second one. But my question is that if I rack it to a secondary wouldn't I be saving some of the otherwise lost beer.

Here's my thought process. I have a six gallon carboy with a healthy trub. If I transfer to a second, I can siphon from the bottom of the carboy and thus only take minimal amount of trub but a lot of the beer. If I rack to bottles from the primary than i'd probably rack from just above the trub in order to avoid it getting into my bottles. Is this correct? It is worth it? How much beer would I really be salvaging?


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[kh54s10]

Not likely. Every time you rack you will leave a little behind. So you will end up with less beer, not more.

I leave only about a half a bottle of beer above the trub when bottling from primary. When I (rarely) bottle from secondary I lose at least another half bottle, or more.

 

[Trox]

Why not just rack to a bottling bucket when your ready to bottle, and save your self the trouble of having to rack to a secondary and then the bottling bucket? If you aren't using a bottling bucket you should really look into getting one; will make bottling day a lot easier.

 

[jrgtr42]

Generally you don't want to rack from primary directly into bottles in the first place - how are you planning on adding the priming sugar (or are you using carb caps or the equivalent?)
Generally accepted procedure, when using sugar, is to dissolve the sugar into boiling water, then add to bottling bucket. Then rack the beer on top of that, letting it swirl to mix well.
Then go from there into the bottles.

 

[evbrewco]

Why not just rack to a bottling bucket when your ready to bottle, and save your self the trouble of having to rack to a secondary and then the bottling bucket? If you aren't using a bottling bucket you should really look into getting one; will make bottling day a lot easier.

Maybe I haven't been too clear. I was going to rack from primary to secondary in order to siphon as much as beer as possible from the trub. Then I was going to leave in secondary to let whatever sediment is left to fall to the bottom. From there I would transfer to bottling bucket. Wouldn't I be getting more sediment free beer this way?


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[unionrdr]

It's an extra step that could cause the beer to oxygenate,or get infected from a secondary that's not cleaned & sanitized. Besides loosing a little more beer. When racking to the bottling bucket,just be careful not to suck up anything off the bottom. Or at least very little.
In my case,I have spigots on all my fermenters & use a length of 3/8" tubing on it to the bottom of the bottling bucket,half way around the bottom. Only tilt the primary enough to get as much beer out as possible. When trub/yeast starts getting into the beginning of the racking tube,stop racking. I only get a tiny amount of gritty stuff that settles quickly to the bottom of the bottling bucket. It takes very little practice. Just take it easy & don't rush it.

 

[chickypad]

Maybe I haven't been too clear. I was going to rack from primary to secondary in order to siphon as much as beer as possible from the trub. Then I was going to leave in secondary to let whatever sediment is left to fall to the bottom. From there I would transfer to bottling bucket. Wouldn't I be getting more sediment free beer this way?

IME time is the important factor not number of transfers in getting clear beer. The sediment will continue to settle out in the primary without the need to transfer, and if you cold crash it will do even better. I always lost more beer doing a second transfer so I just don't do it.

 

[evbrewco]

IME time is the important factor not number of transfers in getting clear beer. The sediment will continue to settle out in the primary without the need to transfer, and if you cold crash it will do even better. I always lost more beer doing a second transfer so I just don't do it.

Hmm interesting. Why is this? From the beer being "trapped" in the sediment both times?


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[unionrdr]

No,it's just a fact that you can't rack all the beer out of every vessel each time. The more you rack,the more you loose. So minimize the number of rackings.

 

[evbrewco]

No,it's just a fact that you can't rack all the beer out of every vessel each time. The more you rack,the more you loose. So minimize the number of rackings.

Ya that's makes sense. Appreciate the input


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[freisste]

Hmm interesting. Why is this? From the beer being "trapped" in the sediment both times?


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I imagine the trub being something like seaweed - looks like there is a ton there, but the beer is somewhat structural and when siphoned out it compacts more. Not sure if this is actually the case. In fact, it is likely somewhat true for hop crap, but not trub.

If you had a way to "wring it out" you might get something. Not sure how to do that in a practical way.

My preference is to use a little more grain to get the correct gravity with a batch about 1/2 gallon larger than recipe. Then I leave a little more behind.

 

[BBL_Brewer]

In my experience, racking to secondary will clear the beer faster, but you do lose a little bit of beer in the process.

 

[WileECoyote]

Maybe I haven't been too clear. I was going to rack from primary to secondary in order to siphon as much as beer as possible from the trub. Then I was going to leave in secondary to let whatever sediment is left to fall to the bottom. From there I would transfer to bottling bucket. Wouldn't I be getting more sediment free beer this way?


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Yes, Your beer will be much clearer and less sediment, I listened to everyone on this forum saying that secondarys are totally unnecessary and quit using secondarys for a long time.

I am using secondary fermenters once again and my beers have been coming out clearer, crisper, cleaner tasting, with less yeast flavor in the beers and more of the beer flavors, all my beers taste better now.

I re-started using secondarys to be able to condition/age my beers without using up all my kegs, and its working great! here is a pic of my brew room.

 

[freisste]

here is a pic of my brew room.

Dude... You're my hero. Hellova setup.

 

[evbrewco]

Yes, Your beer will be much clearer and less sediment, I listened to everyone on this forum saying that secondarys are totally unnecessary and quit using secondarys for a long time.



I am using secondary fermenters once again and my beers have been coming out clearer, crisper, cleaner tasting, with less yeast flavor in the beers and more of the beer flavors, all my beers taste better now.



I re-started using secondarys to be able to condition/age my beers without using up all my kegs, and its working great! here is a pic of my brew room.

Dam that's a beautiful brew room. With I had that space. Appreciate everyone's input. The guy I'm brewing with is super pro secondary so looks we might go that way.


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[MindenMan]

I have cut my trub to a bare minimum by straining out of the BK, into my fermenter bucket after the the wort is clear. There is always some "silt" that gets through the strainers ( 5 gallon paint strainers) into my fermenter bucket, and all the flocked "big" particles get strained out. Granted, there is a little trub in my primary, and after cold crashing for a few days, the trub is compacted and I maybe lose half a beer. I also brew for 5-1/2 gallons in my grain bill, so when I am all bottled up, I still get 50+ beers.
All my buckets also have spigots.

 

[WileECoyote]

Dude... You're my hero. Hellova setup.

Thank You, it has been quite a lot of work, but I love it.

Living in Arizona makes it difficult to temp control fermentation to say the least, summer is 120+ deg and winter is 32 deg.

So I have insulated over the window and installed a 6000 btu A/C unit for summer and a small heater for winter, the room is at a constant 70 deg for age conditioning, I still use the old fashion swamp cooler method for primary fermentation.

I also added mood lighting behind the top row of bottles, so I can turn off the main lights and the bottles dimly light the room, its like being in a dimly lit bar.

Some times I just sit in the room and listen to music and smell the smells, last weekend we picked up 400+ lbs of grain so the room smells really, really good, add that with fermenting beer smell and its heaven.

Cheers to all that brew !

Cheers

 

[balrog]

Dude....that setup is F'AWESOME!

 

[WileECoyote]

Dam that's a beautiful brew room. With I had that space. Appreciate everyone's input. The guy I'm brewing with is super pro secondary so looks we might go that way.


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Thank You,

I think it was suppose to be a walk in closet, and believe it or not, my wife helped me turn it into what it is now, she dose like beer though lol.

Sorry to the OP, I didn't mean to hijack your thread, just wanted to share a pic of the secondarys, and let know my results not using and using them.

Cheers

 

[WileECoyote]

Dude....that setup is F'AWESOME!

Thank You !

Cheers

 

[unionrdr]

I also strain my chilled wort into the fermenters (buckets & Cooper's Micro brew FV) with a fine mesh strainer. Only the silty stuff gets through,as said. By bottling day,I wind up with about 3/8" of trub & yeast compacted on the bottom. I get 48-53 12oz bottles from 5 gallons. 62-67 from 6 gallon batches.

 

[evbrewco]

Yes, Your beer will be much clearer and less sediment, I listened to everyone on this forum saying that secondarys are totally unnecessary and quit using secondarys for a long time.



I am using secondary fermenters once again and my beers have been coming out clearer, crisper, cleaner tasting, with less yeast flavor in the beers and more of the beer flavors, all my beers taste better now.



I re-started using secondarys to be able to condition/age my beers without using up all my kegs, and its working great! here is a pic of my brew room.

What's your general rule when racking to secondary? How soon do you do it? A week? Week and a half? My friend was saying he wants to rack to secondary when the air lock is bubbling around 3 times a minute


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[WileECoyote]

What's your general rule when racking to secondary? How soon do you do it? A week? Week and a half? My friend was saying he wants to rack to secondary when the air lock is bubbling around 3 times a minute


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Hello evbrewco, I replied to your PM, please read it, just incase it didn't get to you.

DON"T Listen to your friend, that is NOT Good advise IMO.

7 to 10 days is a fast time frame to rack, I go 2 weeks for most beers, 3 weeks for big beers is what I do and I have been having really good results, yeast need time to ferment out the beer, then they need time to clean up after them selves.

At 12 days take a hydro reading, on day 14 take another hydro reading, if they are the same your ok to rack, if it is still dropping, I would leave it on the yeast a few more days.

I secondary anywhere from 5 weeks to 6 months depending on the beer, there is nothing fast about making "good beer", good beer takes time.

Read the PM, I go into a lot more detail, if you have any more questions feel free to ask or PM me again and Ill answer.

Hope this helps !

Cheers

 

[Naturallight16oz]

I rack to secondary once violent fermentation stops, or when ever i feel like brewing another batch. I then pitch on top of my yeast cake. I can brew a batch every couple days on the same yeast. Sometimes I'll brew 2 batches and just split my slurry into both carboys. I feel so efficient.

 

[WileECoyote]

I rack to secondary once violent fermentation stops, or when ever i feel like brewing another batch. I then pitch on top of my yeast cake. I can brew a batch every couple days on the same yeast. Sometimes I'll brew 2 batches and just split my slurry into both carboys. I feel so efficient.

Hello, I tried racking to secondary (a recipe I have brewed a lot), at day 5 so I could pitch on top of that cake, that beer took 2 weeks longer from brew date to drinking, than it had ever taken before or since.

I do rack on to the yeast cake most of the time, and I also split the cake into 2 fermenters when brewing 10 gallon batches, just like you said and it works great.

Just wanted to share my experience with racking off the yeast real quick.

Now with brewing so much, I have 2 sets of yeast going at the same time, and I rotate racking off the yeast.

Cheers