Brewing

Today I siphoned the beer from the primary brew keg into a glass carboy for the secondary fermentation. I actually started last night by sterilizing the carboy. I filled it with a dilute solution of chlorine bleach and let it sit all night with the solution in it. This morning, I emptied it and then rinsed it twice before letting it drain for a while. I had a couple cups of coffee and then proceeded to sterilize the racking equipment (siphon, etc.), the stopper and airlock for use with the carboy. After all of this was done, I pried the top off of the primary keg. I mean pry too -- even with a tool I purchased to get the top off, it was difficult. When I got it off, the smell was fabulous! I think I can now state that it is actually beer in there! Looking into the keg, there is a lot of sediment from the yeast. The beer is fairly dark in color. I then placed the carboy on the floor beneath the keg and and inserted the racking tube. The one I bought has a manual priming pump to get the siphon started, so I placed the soft plastic siphon tube down into the carboy and pump started the siphoning process. It took a bit over five minutes for the beer to transfer from the primary keg to the carboy. While it siphoned, I moved the end of the siphon around so that it would splash air into the beer for further fermentation [later update -- do not splash the beer at this point -- you do not want to introduce oxygen into it now -- only at the very beginning to get the yeast started]. When it was done, there was about a half inch left in the primary keg, but it was mostly sediment from the yeast you wouldn't want to transfer. The racking tube has a device that fits on its end that keeps you from drawing from the very bottom so you won't get the sediment.



After the carboy was filled, I lifted it up to the table and stoppered it with the airlock in place. I then rinsed and wiped down the primary keg and cleaned all of the siphoning equipment. Next Friday or Saturday, I will start monitoring the specific gravity to see if the brewing has stopped, after which it will be time to bottle the beer.