The purpose of a racking arm is to move beer from your fermenter but leave the yeast cake and trub behind in the fermenter. Depending on the strength of beer you are brewing, the amount of yeast pitched and other material that makes its way into your conical (trub, hop material etc), the yeast cake bed height will vary. Below are some best practices for using our racking arm.


  1. Start with the racking arm sideways when you fill the conical with wort and proceed with primary fermentation.
  2. When you’re ready to transfer your beer out of you fermenter connect a hose to your racking butterfly valve.
  3. Slowly open the butterfly valve to see if the beer runs clean through the line, or is full of yeast.
  4. If full of yeast, carefully loosening the tri-clamp around the racking arm and turning the arm up slightly. Re-test for yeast flow.
  5. Repeat step 4 until the beer runs clean. You now know where the yeast cake bed is.
  6. Drain your fermenter and enjoy your freshly brewed beer!


Pro tip:

You can lower the yeast cake of any batch by dumping yeast and trub before pulling from the racking arm! For the yeast dump process, see here!