Rackin' Rye

I siphoned the Rye P.A. into a secondary vessel (another PET carboy). I like to get the beer off the yeast sludge (trub) after a week or so. It seems to give me better luck when I use dry yeast. I normally don't like to mess with the beer until bottling, but I have a smooth, easy system. I figured out to put an in-line valve on the tubing end of my racking assembly, and then add a 4-inch piece of tubing to that. I suck the beer to my mouth (on the small tubing piece), turn off the in-line valve, and remove the piece. Now the part of the racking assembly that touched my mouth is out of the picture: I move the valve to the caboy opening, turn it on, and feed the tubing into the empty carboy. I've got the length right so the stainless steel racking cane sits in the fermenter full of beer, the tubing (and valve) rests on the bottom of the new, empty carboy. The beer siphons quickly, with a minimum of splashing. The kitchen table is just the right height for the fermenter while the secondary sits on the floor. The beer is a light amber color, with a clean, fresh aroma. Looking forward to getting it in the bottle this weekend.