MalFet

Recipes 

The literature varies on where yeast is happiest, but I tend to sit near 5 for most of the fermentation the cap up to 25 or so at the end. Certainly there's no trouble at that range.

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"Be excellent to each other." -Benjamin Franklin

V-Twin

Recipes 

Update: I ended up increasing my pressure on my Blonde from 2 PSI to 7 PSI (@66F) and held it there for the next two days. This AM I checked to see where my gravity was and was surprised to see it had already dropped to 1.010 (OG 1.052 pitched on 1/22 Tuesday PM).
I Increased the spunding valve pressure (to start the ramp) and cranked up the temp by 2F and shook up the fermenter a little to rouse the yeast a bit. I'll keep increasing my temp 1F each day for a few more days. Hope I didn't miss my opportunity (too low gravity) to get full carbonation done at room temp.. Oh well.. I can always finish up the carbonation in my keezer.

It is peoples experience that they see faster fermentation while under pressure?

-MG-

Recipes 

I'm back to my pressure fermenting in a sanke and ran into a problem. My relief valves from grainger don't seem to be releasing anything!



I've done several batches using them and wondering if maybe at some point some wort sealed them up or something? I have two identical ones and both aren't working.

I currently am just manually releasing pressure on the sanke's relief valve to keep it around 5. I am going to take a gravity reading shortly here to see where I am at and maybe can just let it ramp up at this point, but really confused. I try completely opening and closing them without any sound or movement on the psi gauge.

So I soak them in PBW or something?

MalFet

Recipes 

Mine got plugged up good once, and I actually had to take a piece of coat hangar wire to the spring on the inside. Then, run some pbw through and you're good!

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"Be excellent to each other." -Benjamin Franklin

pickles

Recipes 

Hmmm, that makes me want to install a relief valve, maybe 50 psi or so.

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Gaptooth Brewhouse

WortMonger

Recipes 

I am unhappy with all the ones I have bought. I need one that is 100% nylon or polysulphone that has a stainless spring and stainless ball. Mine have all corroded in some form or another. There has to be a cheaper better one out there.

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Islandboy85

Recipes 

Stupid question...could you not make a weighted triclover cap to set on top ora Sanke keg with a seal? Put a 2# weight on it and it should go up to about 6psi. Anything over that it would bump your cap up and burp the extra pressure. No springs, no corrosion. Am I way off track?

MalFet

Recipes 

I've been thinking about something like this too...With some simple machining, you'd get a nice little valve that would burp at your target PSI. Add extra bits of weight to increase the amount of pressure held.

Another advantage over these commercial pieces (besides cleanability) would be knowing exactly where your pressure cap is at at any given moment. More than once I misestimated the number of twists on my valve only to wake up to way more pressure than I had wanted.

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"Be excellent to each other." -Benjamin Franklin

Photopilot

Recipes 

In theory yes, a weight will keep some pressure inside but it might be hard to calibrate the pressure/weight. It is also missing some of the factors associated with pressurized fermenting.

1. Being able to monitor and know the pressurization level.
2. Varying the pressure during different phases.
3. Keeping the beer under CO2 and pressure from start start of fermentation to kegging.
4. Being able to pull off samples to test CO2 fermentation progress.

Islandboy85

Recipes 

Add a triclover tee. Put a gauge on the side, clamp the bottom to the keg, and have your weighted cap on top within very loose clamp.
When you want to keg, clamp the cap. Have a racking can plumbed into this rig. same for samples, or add a sample valve to the side of the keg.