On racking, I must admit I am not really a fan. I have had my unracked beers judged many times by professionals and amateurs in competition and not once has a judge suggest that I rack. Commercial breweries use a racking procedure to free up valuable equipment for the next batch. Our fermenters are not that valuable and our beer is generally safer left alone. Racking is also done at very specific times and messing this up can often destroy a perfectly good beer.

If it's done too soon, there is no benefit as the yeast has not dropped out and if done too late there is not enough carbon dioxide being produced to displace the regular air in the new container. For this reason a proper racking bin is usually 20 litres so that there is no airspace. A safer procedure is to fill the racking bin with CO2 from your keg system. Just put a gas plug from a keg into the gas disconnect and lower that into the bin. Fill the bin with CO2 and remove, putting the lid on loose. Fill the transfer tube with CO2 and then hook up the tube tap to tap. Open up both taps and the brew will flow into the racking bin as long as the fermenter is higher.

When complete turn off both taps, put fermenter and bin at the same height and remove tube. Be sure to wash out the tap on the racking bin with a spray of your cleaning solution and then rinse. Using CO2 in this manner will reduce beer exposure to oxygen which could stale the beer. This is the correct way to rack but I know of shops that sell the brewer another fermenter to use as a racking bin and they tell the brewer to just drop it into the bin with a tube. I feel it's much safer to leave the beer to clear itself.

The beer is safely blanketed with the CO2 that has been produced during fermentation. Once the yeast has done it's job and there isn't any more sugars to gobble up it will drop to the bottom giving you clear beer. Most keggers up this way leave beer 2 weeks in the fermenter.

If you develop contamination when you leave it in for 2 weeks that's another story and you would need to look at your sanitation procedure.

Cheers,
Younga.