RACKING and DISPENSING issues

[Darkalex]

How the heck do you rack when you’ve a lot of particulate matter present in the source beer/wort? In these examples, I have had difficulty racking to carboy, racking to keg, or dispensing the beer from keg: You’ve fruit beers with a lot of cherry/raspberry bits in solution, IIPAs with a shotload of dry hop in the source carboy, Belgian wits with their orange peel/coriander/chamomile all over the place.. You get the idea. This material clogs up my siphon, slowing it down or stopping the siphon entirely. If they make their way into the receiving keg, they’ll clog up the dip tube, and beer dispensing slows to a trickle. I love these beer styles, but racking/dispensing issues make brewing them a real pain. Any suggestions?

[Steve Urquell]

I zip tie one of these to the "out" end of my siphon when racking and leave a good space at the end of it for accumulation. ~$2 at Lowe's in the paint section.

Some people have had good luck by zip tying one of these inside a paint strainer bag at the "in" end of their racking cane to keep it from sucking into the end of the cane.

[blacklab]

Uhhh...rack from the top of the beer? You've got to leave the sludge behind. You're going to lose some beer with each transfer, it's a fact of life. Are you allowing sufficient time for clearing? If you're brewing something with a lot of additions that you mention above (fruit, spices) you need some extra clearing time for most of the gunk to fall out.

[Steve Urquell]

Uhhh...rack from the top of the beer? .

That doesn't always work. Seems like I always have hop debris floating on top of my beer after dry hopping. Ten days after the dry hop addition-->
What am I doing wrong?

[blacklab]

That doesn't always work. Seems like I always have hop debris floating on top of my beer after dry hopping. Ten days after the dry hop addition-->
What am I doing wrong?

Whoa, that is wild. Never seen that much crap on top after 10 days. Looks more like krausen than hops. I guess I would try putting the dry hops in a muslin bag next time, this time, just stick the muslin bag on the racking cane and use it as a filter.

[Steve Urquell]

Whoa, that is wild. Never seen that much crap on top after 10 days. Looks more like krausen than hops. I guess I would try putting the dry hops in a muslin bag next time, this time, just stick the muslin bag on the racking cane and use it as a filter.

That was a 4oz. dry hop with pellets. Extreme and fugly, I know, but even with a small dry hop with either pellets or leaf, I always have some floating debris--thus the recommendation to rack thru the paint strainer bag.

[davebl]

I sanitize a section of nylon paint strainer and a zip tip, then wrap the strainer on my racking cane, zip tip and siphon

[Darkalex]

I have had similar issues with hops when dry hopping. Some stay on top of the beer some sink. When dry hopping, I go for 7-10 days, depending on what it is. Cold crash for a day or two. Then rack. For fruit beers I generally allow the beer to stay in contact with fruit for 2-4 weeks. Cold crash for about a week. Then rack to keg.

Do you guys find that using the paint streiner bag or ss braids slows the siphon or dispensing way down? I've used the paint streiner bag technique with mixed results. It works great with whole cherries suspended, but terribly with the puree. When siphoning from carboy to keg, the cherry bits all seem to cluster around the tip of the racking cane and bubble feremented beer through the siphon. My concern is that this action oxygenates the beer at the worst possible time... Have not tried this yet with a dry hopped beer.

[MX1]

Well, I dont keg and the only time I have ever had issue is from the kettle to the primary, so I started using a stainless kitchen sieve it is large enough that i usually dont have to worry about the siphon.
Not sure what I would do from the Primary to Secondary though.....or from Secondary to keg....but i am sure I would use something on the inlet side not the outlet, but that is just me, maybe a bazooka screen on my racking cane...

Tim

[Steve Urquell]

Do you guys find that using the paint streiner bag or ss braids slows the siphon or dispensing way down?

Not on the out side. I don't jam it on the tip of the cane though. I let it bag to give it more mesh to filter thru.

but i am sure I would use something on the inlet side not the outlet, but that is just me
Tim

Believe me, I also had my doubts the first time I did it that way. I figured that outlet with no bubbles was better than inlet with lots of bubbles.

I just make sure to keep the tip and bag submerged in the beer. I figure whether the beer is going thru mesh on the way in or the way out makes no difference as long as it's submerged and not splashing. I haven't oxidized one yet.