Great Hope Part 2

So today we move the Great Hope Ale (a.k.a. Linwood Brewery, Batch No. 1) to the secondary fermenter. This involves simply moving it from the plastic bucket into a glass carboy. A carboy is like those big water bottles that sit on top of your water cooler at work.
First you wash and sterilize your carboy, plastic tube and the spigot on the primary fermenting bucket.

If you don't clean and sterilize, you risk incurring the wrath of The Fermenter! Boy, you don't want him coming after you. This is The Fermenter! on a pleasant day.






While cleaning and running away from The Fermenter! you could put the plastic bucket up where you're going to drain it into the carboy, so all of the compostable goo can settle to the bottom and not transfer itself into the carboy, and eventually, your beer.




So here you see the bucket, large siphon hose, and the glass car boy. Put the hose all the way to the bottom of the car boy, open the spigot and drain. Simple, no? Indeed. Simple.






Just don't, uhm, push the stopper into the neck of the carboy too hard. Hey, I was excited, O.K.? The stopper was resisting and I, well, just gave it a little extra push. Well, the beer's still fine and can sit here for a while. The recipe called for a second ferment for 12 days, but it's anaerobic so we left it for a little while longer. Hey we have to work for a living you know.

In our next issue... bottling day! (And getting that damn stopper out).