Racking or drops

[Unkiedrunkie]

Have made a few batches just never tried racking,wondering does it make a huge difference in any aspect of taste, texture etc?

[Beerlust]

Hi UnkieDrunkie, & welcome to the forum.

The "racking" process is traditionally spoken about in American brewing circles as they often primary ferment in buckets, carboys & all sorts of odd shaped vessels, thus they need to remove the beer into a vessel suited for bottling, hence why they "rack it" out of the primary vessel they use for primary fermentation.

Racking off into another vessel also separates the beer from a lot of 'trub' that builds up at the base of the fermenting vessel & contains non-fermentable materials such as dead yeast, hop debris, grain based vegetal matter (in some cases), & other unfermentable material. Leaving your beer atop large volumes of dead yeast for longish periods is not advised as it can lead to off flavours in the beer due to yeast autolysis.

In Australia most home brewers ferment their beer in a fermenter fitted with a tap toward the base of the fermenter. This tap fitting usually sits high enough above the trub at the bottom of the fermenter so the beer once fermented out can be bottled directly from the fermentation vessel with no need for transfer to a secondary vessel to separate the beer from the trub.

The only time I've regularly noticed guys racking off to a secondary vessel here in AUS is if they plan to "bulk prime" the beer prior to bottling/kegging.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Unkiedrunkie]

Thanks mate, very informative

[Beerlust]

You're welcome.

Good luck with your future brewing. 

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Potatoes]

Everything lusty said was good. Also an advantage of the bulk prime racking is if you have different sized bottles. Makes it more consistent fizz between bottles. I’ve got 1 litre, 740 ml, 500ml, 450 ml and 330 ml bottles. The carb drops becomes a little confusing at bottling time with these. 

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yep, only ever bothered racking for bulk priming, and more recently with kegging but that's a whole other story. More like a giant bottle, the beer obviously goes nowhere else but a glass after it's kegged.

I don't see any benefit to racking aside from bulk priming, once the yeast have done their work it may as well just be bottled or kegged. It will clear up there just as much as in another fermenter and you'll get to drink it sooner as it will carbonate at the same time.

One other reason I can think of for racking to a secondary is if you are planning to lager a batch for a while before bottling it. In that scenario you would use a sealed container purged with CO2, otherwise it may get infected, and you'd need a fridge to sit the container in.