Arlen uses the handy spigot to transfer beer from the primary to secondary fermenter. After talking to the guys at the homebrew store, we decided this wasn’t such a good idea. By using the spigot, we were transferring the trub. For some reason, we thought the trub was necessary. This is before we knew what trub was, or that there was even such a word as trub.

Trub is a fancy word for “crap that sits at the bottom of your fermenter.” This crap is mostly composed of spent grain, dead yeast and other solids that precipitate out of the beer. Note: trub is gross.

To avoid trub suckage (a technical brewing term) we now use a racking cane. What may sound like something they use for punishment in Singapore is basically a stainless steel, or in our case plastic, tube with a plastic cap on the end. The racking cane is set gently on top of the trub and then used to siphon beer between fermenters. The plastic cap keeps out things we don’t want, such as hop leaves and gravity ensures the solids stay at the bottom of the fermenter.

After transfering the beer, we fill waterballons with the trub and save them to throw at people we don't like.