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So I did my first ever beer and it was to be a hoppy Saison (3724 combined with Amarillo, Centennial and Cascade). I had tons of stuff going wrong while boiling, even not managing to temperature crash the beer (Ambient temperature here is 30 degrees). So far the taste of it was yummy, bitter, a little fruity and the finish just sucks your tongue dry.

Now after four weeks I got curious to see what it turned out like so far so I took a tasting glass and emptied a bit of beer from the carboy using the spigot on the bottom. There was a fair bit of sediment in the glass (I think most of it is hop pellet remains): enter image description here

So I was wondering what my options are here. Considering there is a significant amount of sediment, could I get away with transfering it on bottling day to a bottling bucket and let it rest for an hour or two (so all the sediment can settle before trasnfering it into a bottle?).

Are there any other options aside from putting it to secondary? (if you guys think this is too much sediment I guess I don't have any other option)

One thing I already considered was not transferring through the spigot but with a tube and "pump" it over to the bottling bucket.

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Grats on your first brew!

Ultimately you need to draw beer from above the trub (sediment).

If your fermentor is designed for fermenting and has a spigot, it should have an adjustable arm you can turn to draw beer from above the trub.

If it's a bottling bucket you can prop up the bucket a couple inches while it's settling to get trub to settle away from the spigot.

Or you can use a racking cane (auto syphon) to rack the beer with more control.

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You can also add gelatin to the batch before bottling. Our will cause they sediment to coagulate and settle. Then bottle using cane and a racking tip to ensure less debris. I had the same issue as well.

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  • Irish moss is a good option if you want it to be vegetarian/vegan
    – Ben Taliadoros
    Jun 11, 2020 at 16:25
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I've had big problems with too much trub (sediment) in my first couple of batches but now that I use an auto-syphon it isn't really an issue anymore. Hop pellets definitely will contribute to the sediment residing at the bottom of a batch but an auto-siphon is extremely helpful as you can use it to avoid sucking directly off of the bottom of the carbon, thus avoiding the trub.

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The existing answers are hard to add to. However, making sure you end up with minimal sediment in your fermenter in the first place goes a long way in clarifying the beer. Such as using hop bags or a boil screen to keep pellet hop gunk out. Also the use of clarifying agents such as whirfloc in the boil and using a whirpool will all contribute to the wort being much more clear when transferring to you fermenter. The Speidel fermenters from morebeer.com are great inexpensive fermenters with the spigot placed high enough over the trub to leave it behind when transferring or pulling samples. The less expensive route would be the auto siphon but siphons suck! Pun intended.

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An auto-syphon will make a big difference. One more thing I do in addition is tie a small, fine nylon mesh bag to the end of the hose inside the bottling bucket. Just sanitize the bag like you would any brewing equipment. In my experience this catches an astonishing amount of hop material, even when using an auto-syphon.

Like I said, this has worked very well for me in conjunction with an autosyphon but you may get away with it just using the spigot.

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    I'm surprised with all the recommendations for auto siphons. I've been struggling to keep my beer clear and have recently bought some spigots to fit to my plastic fermentation/bottling buckets, on the basis that drawing beer from just above the trub with no disturbance to the beer would give me less sediment in the bottles than if I'm poking about in there with siphon tubes.
    – David Liam Clayton
    Jul 28, 2018 at 7:32

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