Bottling from secondary Fermentor?

[agbrewer03]

I have the Williams siphonless setup (every bucket has a spigot). I am about to order a 5 gal carboy with a spigot to use as a secondary fermenter.

Once a beer is in secondary, do you need to rack to a bottling bucket or just bottle from the secondary fermentor?

The reason I ask is the carboy spigot is 1/2" and I will need to buy a 1/2" spring loaded bottle filler.

 

[finsfan]

You will want to transfer to bottling bucket to add it together with priming sugar, otherwise you would have to measure out the sugar in bottles (not recommended) or just carb tabs.

 

[agbrewer03]

ah yes, I forgot about that. newbie mistake.

Thanks

 

[finsfan]

No problem. It is an annoying step but vital!

 

[unionrdr]

Yup! The right tool for the job makes the job go better.

 

[flars]

You can bottle from your secondary if you have marked volume increments that are accurate. If you have marked it for volume then you will know how much priming sugar to add. Sediment in the bottom may be a bit of a problem though.

 

[atreid]

Sediments can be considered as beer volume because they are essentially fully soaked. It could be argued that sugar won't go through them as fast as the rest of the beer though. I consider them as beer.

I've bottled from secondary lots of times... Let the sugar diffuse for a good 30 minutes and sanitize your bottles in the meantime. Just be careful with your racking cane. Choose a spot to drop it down and don't move it around or you'll siphon all the yeast and sediments. You'll still siphon around a little but I've had clear beer doing this. Maybe the first two bottles will have a bit more sediments but that's it. I mark the bottles accordingly to make sure they don't end up as gift...

Not that a bottling bucket is hard to manage.... It's just that sometimes my secondaries have so little sediments that I don't even bother.

 

[unionrdr]

But you don't drink the trub,so I don't concider it the same as liquid volume. but if I've got 5 gallons of beer with maybe 3/8-1/2" of trub/yeast I'll just prime for 5 gallons.

 

[atreid]

But you don't drink the trub,so I don't concider it the same as liquid volume. but if I've got 5 gallons of beer with maybe 3/8-1/2" of trub/yeast I'll just prime for 5 gallons.

This is a wrong assumption. If you consider the trub and sediments are mostly liquid and go with the assumption the added sugar is gonna go through them, the actual volume in which the sugar is diluting is the total volume including the trub. If you pitch sugar for 5 gallons into 5 gallons + 0.25 gallons, you're making a dilution and the sugary beer you are bottling is actually less concentrated in sugar than you intended.

Nevertheless, depending on the thickness of the sediments, the sugar might not make it all the way through them in only 30 minutes of diffusion (since you don't resuspend the sediments, nor would you want to). I tend to believe the difference is actually pretty meaningless, but I myself tend to count the whole volume as beer even though I waste some of them because nobody bottles the trub/sediments.

If you play around in Beersmith changing the volume while keeping the mass of sugar added the same, you'll realize how little it impacts your actual CO2 volume.

This is pretty much only an academic debate as this has very little impact on the final carbonation. Few people will tell the difference between a 2.4 CO2 volume beer and a 2.45 one.

 

[unionrdr]

Not really a wrong assumption. You're not drinking the trub,you're not racking it to the bottling bucket,so why count it as total bottling volume? I see what you're saying,but I don't believe it should be counted,since,in the end,it's a waste product. I strain my wort into the fermenter,so what little I get at the bottom by bottling day is inconsiquential. So as youe said,a small volume like that isn't going to change much. But I seriously doubt the average person will def tell the difference between 2.40 vco2 & 2.45.

 

[atreid]

Not really a wrong assumption. You're not drinking the trub,you're not racking it to the bottling bucket,so why count it as total bottling volume? I see what you're saying,but I don't believe it should be counted,since,in the end,it's a waste product. I strain my wort into the fermenter,so what little I get at the bottom by bottling day is inconsiquential. So as youe said,a small volume like that isn't going to change much. But I seriously doubt the average person will def tell the difference between 2.40 vco2 & 2.45.

Let's say the trub is not trub, but beer, and you leave it at the bottom anyway. You'll still have to count it for your sugar addition because the sugar is gonna go in that part of beer too. If you consider trub as being mostly 90% liquid (therefore beer), the sugar is probably going to go through it and even though you're leaving it behind, you still have to count it to determine how much sugar you add, otherwise you are making a dilution. Question is more about IF the sugar is actually diffusing into the trub. If not, you can't count it as beer volume, if yes, you have to. Reality is probably in the middle.

Again, I know we agree it's not going to make much of a difference. Purely an academic discussion.

 

[unionrdr]

But it's not 90% liquid. But rather a liquid soaked solid. And some liquid does get left behind,maybe half a 12oz bottle in my case. So I don't think a lot of the trub gets soaked with priming solution. I rack off all that,so the little sprinkle of grainy bits that wind up in the bottom of the bottling bucket are of no concern. And the trub in the primary (or secondary if you racked it cloudy) readilly releases a lot of liquid when tilting to drain it off.
Anyway,it's such a small amount nothing is getting diluted. If anything,a tiny bit more concentrated.