Tilting carboy

[michaewa]

Should you?

I have always let mine sit flat, but in the homebrew store yesterday I saw a display where they had the primary 6.5 gal carboy sitting at an angle propped up with a device underneath. Does anyone do this?

It seems like it would be good in that your sediment, etc would all fall to one side of the carboy, making it easier to avoid during racking. However, it also would seem that when the krausen rises it would have less of a distance to travel before blasting out into the blowoff tube and you would lose more beer out the tube as a result.

[sallad]

you could always do the first 2-3 days flat, then the next few days tilted to let the sediment settle... sounds like a neat idea.

[atxf4i]

I tried tilting the primary before it was finished...messy. Now I just wait. I have my 6.5 gal carboy level for the first 2-3 days, then I put a 2 inch block under one side, to have everything settel to one side. Then, when I rack to the secondary, as I'm shiponing, I'll wait until it's almost done, then slowly remover the block and gently lower that side, allowing almost all of the liquid to be transferred. As soon as I see chuncks coming up the racking cane, i stop shiponing. That way I avoid transferring as much sediment as possible. I use the block under the secondary as well. For me, it works very well.

[danno]

let me preface my response by saying, I've had a bad day. One of those days where everything that could have gone wrong, did....

this scares me. you're going from all 360º of the bottom of your carboy in contact with a flat surface to, well, a whole lot less than that in contact with a non-flat surface. All I worry about is Mr. Murphy and his law rearing its ugly head and 5 gallons of precious beer ending up all over the floor...

[barley ben]

I have never heard of that in my life. gonna try it next brew, what a great idea. But like Danno said, make sure its stable. Don't want it tipping over. That would be bad!!! This is a common practice? Sounds like a great one.

[michaewa]

I'll happily take credit for it...unless your carboy falls over like Danno said. That would be an unprecedented mess. But the LHBS actually had a little stand.

I would probably just use a folded up towel or something to get a slight lift. If you rest the carboy on a towel with one end folded up, it would probably add a little stability.

[croc4]

I made a small platform for transfering. It is a 1'x1' square of plywood. Under one end I placed some strips of wood to elevate the platform about 2.5" then on the opposite top side I added a strip of wood to act as a stop. I then added rubber feet to make sure it does not slide around when in use.

I have never used it for brewing, but for transfering it works good.
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[YamahaXS]

My neighbor built a stand to do just this. It is designed so that there is NO WAY POSSIBLE for the carboy to fall, slide, tip over, or otherwise reconfigure itself.