I decided today would be a good day to rack the Kolsch I brewed last weekend. Eight days didn’t seem too far out of the realm of “standard brewing procedure” so I took a gravity. 1.018 or so, not bad for primary, certainly not bad to put over to secondary.

After sanitizing my Autosiphon and my carboy I being the rack. Spit sputter glurg comes from the racking tube and the siphon is broken! What the heck? There are also yeast colonies floating on the surface of the beer and the tube was very cloudy. The cloudiness I expected but not the yeast on the top nor the ineffective siphon.

I lifted the autosiphon off the bottom of the carboy and was able to transfer three gallons or so that way, but as the top and bottom became closer it stopped again.

Now, rather than sit and force it through by pumping the autosiphon over and over I just pulled out, airlocked both carboys covered them up and walked away. So clearly it wasn’t ready for racking!

So THATS what is meant by “top cropping, low flocculation”!

Learn something new every day.

Any guesses how long I should leave it alone? I’ll wait until Friday and try again, but I’m concerned about leaving it too long!

Cheers?
Tony