re: Looks Like a Fine Night to Brew some Beer....Updated Bottling

To transfer the beer from the primary to the secondary, I use my Racking Cane. My Racking Cane has a "manual pump" built into....sorta like a reverse bicycle pump. It gets the siphon started for you. I used to have to start the siphon the old fashioned way....but not by sucking......but by blowing.....The cap on my carboy has 2 nipples (tubes) sticking out. I would blow into one nipple which built up pressure in the carboy and started the siphon. Blew out a lung a couple of times and it risks contaminating your beer. I would gargle with listerine before doing this. This Racking Cane with the pump makes life a lot easier. If I were a baller I'd buy a march electric pump.

Question for you kind sir. So the secondary still has foam in it. Is that from the sanitizer? I was reading "How to Brew Beer" by John Palmer and he mentioned that that wasn't a big deal, just wanted to confirm/your thoughts on the matter. I'll hang up and listen, thanks.

That doesn't frick up the gravity and stuff? I figured it would dilute it if you left that much in there. Also when you rack it, do you leave the tube at the top and work down to avoid sucking up the trub at the bottom?

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That doesn't frick up the gravity and stuff?

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It may have affected the gravity but not by much. I just did it to see if it would affect the taste of the final beer. Normally, the foam amounts to about an eighth cup of liquid which doesnt affect the gravity.

The Racking Cane doesnt touch the bottom of the carboy. And it has a sorta filter on the end of it....not really a filter but....a small slit...I have to tilt my carboy to get all the liquid and I can see the trub pretty easily by then. I do get a tiny bit of trub but not enough to worry about. If you're the anal type then you may want to look into filtering systems.

3 oz of Citra Hops to Dry Hop with.



I put 1 oz of hops into a hop sock (I discuss the pros and cons of hop socks during the boil hop additions earlier in this thread). Push the hop sock into the carboy. I did dip my hands in the sanitizer bucket before doing this. The hops and the sock don't need to be sanitized as hops are such a powerful anti-bacterial agent and preservative it would be almost unheard of to get an infection in your beer from them.

Oh....and you can see how most the foam from the sanitizers gets pushed up and out of the carboy as it filled.

Just trying to get the finer points down, thanks brah.

That's more my style and that's how I cook, I've just never brewed before so I'm trying to get it down "by the book" so to speak before I start free-lancing shite on my own. Don't want to kill anybody.

Red thing is just a handle to move the thing around right? Book said to try and not slosh it around once you get it into the carboys so it doesn't get oxygen and oxidize (I think, I was reading two weekends ago and haven't read since). Overplayed or legit IYO?

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I have a harness on my 6 gallon primary glass carboy you'll see in a pic in a minute.

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Please tell me you carry it around like a baby strapped to your chest.

Into the fermentation fridge. At this point, temp isnt super critical. I'll let it rise to 70 or so vs. the 63 I fermented at.