Racking Off

[BigAl]

Dumb question I know, but for all the years I have been home brewing I have just bottled the beer straight from the fermenter. Now I find that the better way to ensure you do not get that 'home brew' taste is to rack the beer off into another fermenter, so the viable yeast don't start turning into little necrophilliac cannibles. So when is the best time to rack the brew off?? :?

[PB2]

You find racking is a better way because somebody told you about it or from experience? My question may appear to be facetious, but from my experience racking has negligble affect on the final brew.

 

Do a search in this forum on "racking".

[BigAl]

Thanks Paul,

 

 

 

I'm with you, the fewer times I have to play with the brew the less chance of spoilage, and to date have not had a problem.

 

The query arose when I went to a brew shop in Perth and they do a lot of full grain brewing (the shop was like 'Aladdin's Cave' for Homebrewers believe me!), and I was asking about washing yeast to use/store for later as I'm experimenting with Wyeast cultures.

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Al

[BigAl]

Well, after a few brews under the belt (so to speak) I can now definately recommend racking off.....no,no don't go hear me out first! :D

 

 

 

I made two identical brews one after the other, Coopers Sparkling Ale, #47 was brewed at 21 degC and not racked off. Left to condition at room temperature.

 

 

 

Ale #48 was racked off after 3 days, conditioned for 3 weeks at room temperature.

 

 

 

Had a blind test done with a couple of mates and they agreed unanimously that the racked off beer was heaps better.

 

 

 

So now I rack all my brews off. A word of caution though, sterility is paramount and let the beer flow gently into the second tub ie; ensure the plastic hose reaches the bottom of the second tub.

 

 

 

Another little trick I picked up is DON"T aerate your wort while it is hot, wait until you have added the cold water before vigourously aerating as this stops the wort oxidizing which it will do if you aerate while it is still hot. :wink:

[kieran]

In my opinion, my HOMEBREW starting tasting like BEER when I started RACKING! This is an essential step for me. I hate the homebrew taste, and I find it hard to drink. A racked beer is so much better, its like chalk and cheese. It really is.

 

I know the Coopers guys say it doesn't do anything, and I love the Coopers guys, but I for one definately agree to disagree with them on the point of racking. When my housemate moves out and takes his fermenter (my racker) with him, I'll buy another so I can continue to rack my brew.

 

 

 

Even with a large proportion of the yeast gone, secondary fermentation is still not a problem after racking. In fact, I reckon its better due to the fact that there is less dead/flocculent yeast matter going into your bottles to start with. Therefore, the proportion of live:dead yeast is much higher, which means that after a little bit of growth in your bottle (you'll probably always get the same amount of live yeast growth if bottling straight from primary, or from rack) you'll still end up with a lower yeast mass sitting in your bottle. I hypothesise that this is due to flocculent/dead-ish yeast going into the bottle to start with, and the average age of the yeast in these racked-beer bottles will be much much younger than it would if the beer was bottled straight after a primary. I dont know if that is where the homebrew flavours come from, but my family and friends want to drink my brew now, but in the B.R. days they didn't (B.R. = before racking). ;) :twisted:

[BigAl]

Agree Kieran about the yeast but to add a bit more info to your hypothesis, if the live yeasts start to run out of food ie the fermentables in the wort, the little buggers turn into negrophiliac cannibles and start eating the dead cells which is where the 'home brew' tastes come from, so to stop them doing that rack off while they are still producing CO2, I find 3 days is usually the best. You may find though the finish SG may be a point or two higher than you used to get, no problem but.

[kieran]

No, I don't reckon the FG shouldn't be any different normally. If the point of racking is to remove mainly dead or resting yeast matter, the time where racking is occurring would see the fermentation of any unused sugars by the remaining active yeast. Furthermore, if that were the case, you'd also be getting over carbonated beer from your secondary fermentation after bottling because the addition of glucose drops to an already "sugary" beer would raise the SG even further. And aside from all this, I never rack until my primary fermentation is properly finished anyway, I always wait for two identical specific gravity readings over 24 hours, then I rack. Sometimes this actually means that you get a lower FG because the process of racking - while I'm careful to avoid splashing and oxidising the beer - causes some turbidity in the transfer process, and rouses the yeast sometimes kicking it back into action to ferment a little more of those remaining sugars. This sometimes means a lower FG than a Primary>Bottling method :)

[BigAl]

The way I rack off as per previous post I have found the FSG is a point or two higher and stays there for two or three days (depending when I can bottle it) so theoretically the yeasts have done their dining and taking a quiet nap ready to finish off their feast with a nice little glucose sweet which gives them all a bad case of flatuance. :D

 

 

 

The head retention is definately a lot better and brew not too gassy so their little pooper valves must be nice and tight to give off such nice small bubbles (just finished night shift so...........) :lol: