Process: Pressure kegging dry-hopped, nice clean beers from a Brewhemoth

This is a write-up on how to use a Brewhemoth conical, tri-clover strainer/filter from Brewer's Hardware, and a few fittings to keg clean beers under pressure even with tons of pellet dry hops!


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I use a Brewhemoth, and a few months ago I started to experiment with various ways to transfer my finished beer to kegs, with the minimum possible oxidation. Depending on the beer, I had a few problems to solve.

• For a beer without dry hops, how to fill kegs with no oxygen exposure
• For a beer with dry hops, how to dry hop right in the conical and avoid a secondary
• And for the grand fanale, how to fill kegs with no oxygen exposure, direct from the conical, after dry hopping in the conical, without getting hops in the kegs

I played with various things, and had lots of false starts and failed attempts. Plugged fittings, crazy foaming, having to "fall back" to open transfers ... I had some frustrating sessions. So, I decided to tackle one problem at a time, and evolve the fittings batch over batch until I got to my ultimate goal. What you'll see here is the finished, "does it all" solution, with only the parts that work right.

Photos & Overview

Here's a shot of the conical with the filter apparatus attached. You can see the beginning of the "out" tubing at the top right, after the filter.



Below the conical is a sight glass and dump valve. Many people have a similar setup. It is important for my filtration scheme that you have a dump valve of some kind, so you can drop trub and settled yeast as your fermentation trails off. You need to have the bulk of the junk removed before you start your transfer, so that you are pulling beer rather than junk through your racking port.

On the racking port, there are the following items hooked up, in order;

1. 1-1/2" tri-clover butterfly valve (Brewer's Hardware TC15VBFVST)
2. 1" tri-clover 90º elbow (BH: TC10ELL90)
3. 1" tri-clover 45º elbow (BH: TC10ELL45)
4. Brewers Hardware tri-clover strainer/filter, with 0.2mm stainless filter net (BH: TC15STRAINER & FILTERNET200)
5. 1-1/2" x 1/2" tri-clover to barb fitting (BH: TC15B12)

You could avoid the elbow fittings possibly, although I am not sure the handle on the valve would clear the filter housing. I suspect it would not. My reason for using elbows to orient the filter "up" is simple; when you open the butterfly valve very little (if any, see order below) air will bubble up into the conical, and the filter can be purged of air before filling begins.

Here is an overall shot of all the parts of the process.



The CO2 tank maintains pressure in the conical during the process. I have found 3-5psi to be the sweet spot for transferring with minimal foaming.

Parts here are;

1. CO2 Tank with air (grey) ball lock adapter
2. Spunding valve (brewhemoth)

The spunding valve provides a handy hookup point for the CO2, although you could roll your own simpler fitting for this and save a few bucks if you don't spund.

Here is a more detailed shot of the remaining fittings between the filter and the keg.



From the filter onwards, the parts are;

1. 1' section of 3/8" ID braid reinforced (very important! regular hose goes boom!) silicone hose (Midwest H8117)
2. 3/8" barb to 1/4" MFL adapter (Midwest S6018)
3. Jumper hose consisting of regular bev tubing and swivel flare fittings (Midwest 5185 for the fittings)
4. Liquid side (black) ball-lock adapter (Midwest 5130)

And last in line, we have the keg itself;



The keg sits on a cheapo wal-mart floor scale, which is how I tell how full the keg is during filling. I simply measured the weight of the keg full of water to use as a reference, which in my case is 48lbs. Your number will vary, so be sure to test this yourself with your own kegs.

The Steps

Now that we have all the parts ironed out, let's talk about the process!

1. Brew, Ferment
2. Nearing the end of fermentation, drop your first load of settled yeast & trub
3. After primary fermentation is complete, optionally drop the rest of the settled yeast (up to you - I prefer to do so)
4. If dry hopping, dry hop (pellets only!)
5. If you dry hopped, the day before kegging drop some of the hop matter (keeps bottom port from plugging)
6. If you dry hopped, the day of kegging drop dry hops until you start to see beer in the drop. This gets rid of all the settled hops. There will still be lots more in solution though.

Now, you're ready to keg!

1. Sanitize all fittings, tubing, keg, and filter/strainer
2. Assemble all parts wet, while your keg drip-dries
3. Sanitize the butterfly valve on the conical and attach all the fittings
4. Don't hook up the keg yet
5. Hook up the CO2 to the conical, and pressurize to 3-5psi
6. Once everything is secure, open the butterfly valve to pressurize the filter assembly
7. Over a bucket of some sort, stick your finger into the ball lock fitting to open it, and purge the air out of the line. Let about a cup or two of beer flow out as well, to flush the sanitizer out of everything
8. Assemble the keg
9. Purge the keg with CO2, and then pressurize it to the same pressure as the conical
10. Hook the CO2 back up to the conical, at the same pressure
11. Attach the ball lock fitting to the liquid side of the keg

At this point, a little beer will flow into the keg (you'll hear it if you listen closely), but it will quickly equalize pressure and stop flowing. It's now your job to pull the release ring on the keg every minute or so, while watching the weight of the keg on the scale. As it fills, the pressure will equalize faster between release pulls, and you will need to pull the release more often. When the scale indicates your keg is full, pull off the ball lock adapter, and start the next keg!

Conclusion

It all sounds pretty complicated, but it's super easy to do, now that I have the kinks worked out. Here's a few other things I have learned along the way;

• If you don't dry hop, you can skip the filter and hook the tri-clover barb adapter right up to the butterfly valve. Assuming you have dropped enough yeast!
• If you are dry hopping, don't apply a spunding valve after adding the hops. The CO2 in the beer at kegging time will create a LOT of foam in the lines after getting pushed through the filter, and filling will take forever.
• Make sure your butterfly valve handles are aligned correctly for later steps before you fill the conical. Ask me how I know

I'll leave you with one more picture, showing the aftermath of the last beer I kegged using this process. It was dry hopped with 8oz of Amarillo, on a 10 gallon batch. This is the sight glass assembly removed after the conical was empty. As you can see, there's lots still to be filtered, even after good drops!

Cheers!

Very good write up. Thanks for the info.

Surprised this thread has not gotten more attention. Great write-up and pictures!

This is great stuff! I cant wait til my Brewhemoth arrives in a few weeks.

I've taken some cues from your post. Thanks.

Curious about those with this setup. Do you have a dream setup you still drool thinking about?

Sure! You can always go further. I just added an RO system to my brewery two weeks ago, and I'm forever fiddling with automation and logging projects.

For me though, the best part about my dream brewery is that it frees me to focus on process, which is what I've always enjoyed most about brewing.

Was curious about your chiller. Would you use a freezer if you had one? Specifically cold-crashing is what I am curious about, or perhaps the trade-off of ease of having the fermenter in the open.

I considered a stand up freezer with the brewhemoth inside, and there's only two things that hold me back from it vs. the immersion coil I use instead.

1. I have pretty low ceilings in the brewery, so a full height freezer would be really tight.
2. I didn't know this until I actually had the conical and used it a lot, but I am moving the thing constantly. I move it to sanitize it, to clean it, to inspect it ... it moves a lot.

For me, the freezer would be a hindrance. However, if I was a lager guy it would be absolutely required. The coil can't knock more than 20F off ambient with a live ferment, and to achieve that I have to babysit my water bath at least twice a day. Since I do ales, I'm OK with that.

grathan said:

Was curious about your chiller. Would you use a freezer if you had one?

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cscade said:

I considered a stand up freezer with the brewhemoth inside, and there's only two things that hold me back from it vs. the immersion coil I use instead.

1. I have pretty low ceilings in the brewery, so a full height freezer would be really tight.
2. I didn't know this until I actually had the conical and used it a lot, but I am moving the thing constantly. I move it to sanitize it, to clean it, to inspect it ... it moves a lot.

For me, the freezer would be a hindrance. However, if I was a lager guy it would be absolutely required. The coil can't knock more than 20F off ambient with a live ferment, and to achieve that I have to babysit my water bath at least twice a day. Since I do ales, I'm OK with that.

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I actually got the IC with my brewhemoth for exactly reason #2, but I find that in the spring/summer I go through so much ice that it's adding an extra $10+ to each batch (my kitchen fridge icemaker can't keep up) so I'm starting to look for a standup fridge/freezer.

Clogged your trub filter yet?

I freeze 2-liter bottles full of water and use those instead of ice. I find that I need 4-6 per 24 hour period, depending on how hot it is in the brewery. No cost for ice, but it does mean I have to suck up 8 bottles worth of space in my chest freezer.

So far, this setup just keeps on ticking. I've filled about a dozen kegs this way so far, and everything continues to work as described.

Good write up. I just ordered two brewhemoths and would love to be able to transfer naturally carbonated beer. I have a Glycol chiller so perhaps I can knock temps down far enough to make that possible.

So is your reasoning for the trub filter to just dump your hops into the conical when dry hopping without the use of a hop bag? Seems a hop bag would accomplish the same results?

do you use the trub filter on brew day to filter before pumping to the conical?

cheers!

rvklein said:

Good write up. I just ordered two brewhemoths and would love to be able to transfer naturally carbonated beer. I have a Glycol chiller so perhaps I can knock temps down far enough to make that possible.

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If you use a spunding valve you can transfer carbed beer even at fermenting temps. Just use a chart to figure out psi-> vol for whatever temp.

I prefer not to use a hop bag, just because it's another thing to sanitize and keep clean. The same could be said about the filter of course, but in the case of the filter the contact time is short and I feel I can clean it more thoroughly than a bag.

I do use the filter on the way to the plate chiller on brew day as well, but only sometimes. I have a large stainless hop spider in the brew kettle, and that will suffice for most beers. If I'm doing a big IPA with long contact whirlpool additions, then I prefer to add the hops directly and skip the spider. Then I need the filter in line when it's time to chill.

Cheers!

Mellman said:

So is your reasoning for the trub filter to just dump your hops into the conical when dry hopping without the use of a hop bag? Seems a hop bag would accomplish the same results?

do you use the trub filter on brew day to filter before pumping to the conical?

cheers!

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Jukas has a valid point on the carbonation. You can carb at pretty much any temp, it just takes a higher PSI and longer contact time the warmer you go. Just be aware that anything you attach to the brewhemoth has to be able to handle the pressure. I've run mine up to 15psi with the sight glass attached, but I don't think I'd be comfortable with much more than that.

As usual, YMMV!

with the trub filter mounted that way how much beer do you find is left in the filter/piping/valve?

I've never measured it, but it's an inconsequential amount. The interior volume of the filter is probably 18oz or so, but realistically you're probably going to stop filling your kegs before your conical runs dry to the racking port anyhow. Otherwise you get whatever yeast and junk is still floating on top of the beer.

Personally, I target a post-boil volume of 11 gallons on beers that don't get dry hopped. I manage to get about 10.6 gallons of that into the conical. I take 3-4 gravity readings per ferment and discard that wort, and I still get to fill 2 kegs all the way by weight. If I'm dry hopping like crazy I count on absorption, and increase my post boil size by a gallon just to be sure. A gallon of wort is basically free at this scale, so there's really no reason to be concerned about the filter volume in my opinion.

Where did you get the sight tube from?

Your detail, pics,and price are perfect. Wish I could have a system like this one. Hopefully some day. Good luck.


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Great post and very useful. I just picked up a half barrel chronical fermenter from SS Brewtech and have a trub filter with the 0.2 filter and will be utilizing this same build. I'll post some photos once I have it built and let you know how it turns out. Thanks for the info !

Great thread. I'll be trying something similar with my Brewers Hardware 20gal conical.