2nd Batch question

Well I strain as the wort pours from the kettle to the fermenter, so I guess I never really had this problem (and honestly pretty much all the orange peel is typically left behind in the center of the kettle in my case), are you saying all bits are still floating? I would have expected them to all drop out but I suppose you could just siphon out from under them - skimming through the beer with a strainer doesn't seem ideal and may cause oxidization.

You could try a sanitized muslin bag zip tied loosely around the siphon. I hear people have success with that.

 

do you have a fridge perhaps that will accommodate your fermenter? If so you could cold crash the fermenter before bottling.

Second option would be to sanitize a paint bag (strainer) and attach it to the end of your siphon to help screen out particulates.

 

This works fine. I speculate that rubber bands are nasty, so how you attach to the end of your siphon does matter. Stretch those nasty things many times underneath the surface of your sanitizer, or use string or something less nasty than a rubber band.

However, as epk says, straining as it goes from kettle to fermenter is GOOD. I got one of those big strainers* with the big handle, well worth the twenty bucks (or whatever it cost, it wasn't super cheep, but anything super-cheep usually embodies "you get what you pay for" rather quickly).

*keep in mind that it sets on the bucket perfectly, allowing your mind to think that it's good to go when it comes to pouring. NOT necessarily a ONE man operation. If you're doing this by yourself, make sure to put something through the handle on the strainer end so it doesn't slip into the bucket, causing you to say "D'oh!" Don't ask how I know this.

 

to attach the paint strainer, I've those small zip-ties. easy to sanitize, plastic, so they work pretty well. Honestly, I only did that once. I usually strain between the kettle and fermenter (and I've had that "d'oh" moment!). It works really well. Also, over time the beer will clear itself even in primary. After that I've just been careful not to put the siphon too deep to avoid getting nasty junk into your bottling bucket.

 

Instead of a strainer when going from kettle to bucket, I just throw my grain bag over it. It takes a bit more hand holding than those strainers that fit over the bucket (which I have also used and think they're great) but they are also dirt cheap.

 

The hardest you will laugh in a long time is watching someone try to use one of these POS! Utterly F`ing useless!

 

My strainer is far from useless, it works just fine as long as you don't try to do it by yourself with the strainer unsecured. All that you have to do to secure it from falling into the bucket is stick the spoon through the loop on the end by the strainer, which prevents it from falling in. You'll only make the D'oh! mistake once, then you'll feel stupid for not having realized how easy it is to avoid that moment in the first place.

 

Actually, the strainer stayed put quite well. I used about 4 oz of pellet hops in my batch and it was a heavy beer. Lots of protein and lots of hop material that needed to go through the strainer. It did a little too good of a job and it clogged after the first gallon and after about every gallon after that. I had wort on my shoes, all over the driveway and I had to stop repeatedly to sling the shit out of the strainer to start again. Maybe I'll try it again on an English session beer that only has an oz of bittering hops.

 

It is possible to fill the strainer. On heavily hopped beers, this has happened to me too. But where I brew there's a cliff* to toss the gunk over the edge, and thus the driveway stays clean.

*there is literally a cliff. the edge of the mancave/brewhaus actually hangs over the edge of the cliff just a little, as the whole thing is built right up to the edge. from the picture window in the man-cave, it's about 25 feet to the bottom

 

YIKES! Not wanting to threadjack... but as a geologist... I find this alarming! Are you CERTAIN the cliff face is stable???

 

And I request a picture or two. For science.