Closed-system pressurized fermentation technique!

CornyKegs 728
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What do you guys think about pressure fermentations? Time for a poll.

  • I've done it and I liked it just fine!

  • I've done it, nothing wrong with it, but prefer normal fermentation techniques.

  • I've done it, hate it, and never will do it again!

  • I've never done it, but it is on my list!

  • I've never done anything. I only brew beer in my mind.

Results are only viewable after voting.
kpr121 said:
1: I use fermcap (10 drops per corny), and also only fill to about 4.5 gallons (I generally pull about 1/2 to a full gallon of wort off to use as starters, then decant and pitch the yeast). I also have rigged up a blowoff container inline from the gas QDs, its a water filter that has barb connections on either side. When I do get blowoff (about 50% of the time), it simply collects in the water filter and doesnt gunk up the spunding valve. The valve is obviously on the 'out' port of the water filter.
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Sounds like a darned nice setup. Do you think it produces superior beer? What advantages do you see in pressurized fermentation? How many batches have you made?

I love fermcap, but didn't use it since I'm not pushing volume limits. Yet.
 
Lennie said:
Sounds like a darned nice setup. Do you think it produces superior beer? What advantages do you see in pressurized fermentation? How many batches have you made?

I love fermcap, but didn't use it since I'm not pushing volume limits. Yet.
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I love my setup. I would say that I haven't had a batch I wasn't happy with yet. Maybe 6 or 7 bactches so far. I love the fact that I cs have grain to glass beer in like 2 weeks!

One of the reasons I love it is because I do 10 gal no chill. So boiling wort goes straight in the cornies, rack the last gallon into a Growler, cool it all (growler goes in thr fridge or cold water bath if I want to get a starter going quickly). Then pitch yeast and hook up spunding valve in the next day or two. I let it ferment at about 5 psi for about 4 days, then check gravity. If I'm close to fg I will simply disconnect the spunding valve.

Its awesome and I will never ferment beer any other way. One thing i hate is cleaning the kegs, but hot oxyclean works well!
 
That is about as simple of a setup as I can think of. I'm still going to the trouble of chilling, although its usually just putting the kettle in the sink and filling three or four times, letting the heat transfer then draining and repeating. Only use maybe 10gal of water total. On my 7gal big kettle I use a galvanized washtub on the deck, this time of year I only have to use two changes of water and the wort is cooled nicely. I'd use my IC but its too cold to use the hose and I hate having to attach the hose attachment to the kichen sink. I don't think no-chill has any down sides though, other than more trub in the yeast cake. Do you serve from those kegs?
 
Lennie said:
I'd use my IC but its too cold to use the hose and I hate having to attach the hose attachment to the kichen sink. I don't think no-chill has any down sides though, other than more trub in the yeast cake. Do you serve from those kegs?
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use a pond pump and recirculate the water through the IC. I use a cooler with water and ice and it drops the temp REAL fast
 
Mysticmead said:
use a pond pump and recirculate the water through the IC. I use a cooler with water and ice and it drops the temp REAL fast
Click to expand...
I just got a pump so I have this as an option, I don't think using ice is cost effective until you get the temp down to 100F or lower.
 
kpr121 said:
1: I got my parts from Mc Master:

1 48935K25 1 Each Vacuum/pressure Adjustable Brass Relief Valve, 1/4 Npt Male, 0-20 Psi
2 4089K23 1 Each Multipurpose Gauge, Plastic Case, 2" Dial, 1/4 Npt Ctr Back, 0-60 Psi
3 4429K223 1 Each Low-pressure Brass Threaded Pipe Fitting, 1/4 X 1/8 X 1/4 Pipe Size, Inline Reducing Tee
4 50675K161 1 Each Brass 37 Degree Flared Tube Fitting, Adapter For 1/4" Tube Od X 1/8" Npt Male Pipe

2: I use fermcap (10 drops per corny), and also only fill to about 4.5 gallons (I generally pull about 1/2 to a full gallon of wort off to use as starters, then decant and pitch the yeast). I also have rigged up a blowoff container inline from the gas QDs, its a water filter that has barb connections on either side. When I do get blowoff (about 50% of the time), it simply collects in the water filter and doesnt gunk up the spunding valve. The valve is obviously on the 'out' port of the water filter.
Click to expand...

This is fantastic - I owe you a beer!

So is there a barbed fitting that will mate to the setup or do you have this threaded straight to your filter housing? I like the way you have yours setup and I'd like to go this route.

A picture of this would probably be worth a thousand words if it wouldn't be too much trouble.


Thanks, everybody for all the helpful replies. I can't wait to do my first pressurized fermentation. I'm going to have to read up on washing yeast now; it seems like the two go hand in hand.

Cheers,
~j
 
I'm sure you can find a barbed fitting that will let you attach the spunding valve to the hose on the outlet side. I saw them when I was putting my setup together at Lowes. I stood there at Lowes for 45min trying things until I got the right stuff.
 
Lennie: I haven’t served from the kegs yet. But I am willing to try at some point, it might even be this hefe that is carbing up currently. To me it seems like the first pour in between days of use will usually have sediment since the yeast cake will want to settle in around the diptube. Maybe after the first 10 pints or so it would be fine, but I’ve never chanced it. I like to pressure transfer into another clean serving vessel that has a ½ cup of gelatin solution already inside.

As far as extra trub goes, you could transfer to a new keg before you pitch, leaving the break material behind. I’ve never seen the point in this, but it could help you headspace-wise if you are filling to the full 5 gallons originally.

Jammin: If youre ever in the area, I’d be glad to share! Yes I use ¼ inch barbed fittings that screw directly into the filter housing. I can definitely get a picture of my setup on here. Its all torn down right now but maybe next week when I brew another batch (Yay for a Christmas holiday week off!).
 
I took a gravity sample tonight. As I suspected, the beer has reached 1.016 after just five days, and thats including a 24hr lag time for dry yeast. It has excellent aroma, a rocky head and a very firm bitterness. No sign of diacetyl or other green flavors other than a yeastiness. It might not be quite as black as I wanted but its tough to judge color since the sample had yeast in it. I'm going to keep it at 10psi for another couple of days, then bleed pressure and harvest yeast then dial up the pressure. I might add some priming sugar to ensure adequate carbonation, and maybe some gelatin to speed the clearing.

1.072 to 1.016 in five days, thats fast. 78% attenuation is a perfect result as far as I'm concerned.
 
Lennie said:
I took a gravity sample tonight. As I suspected, the beer has reached 1.016 after just five days, and thats including a 24hr lag time for dry yeast. It has excellent aroma, a rocky head and a very firm bitterness. No sign of diacetyl or other green flavors other than a yeastiness. It might not be quite as black as I wanted but its tough to judge color since the sample had yeast in it. I'm going to keep it at 10psi for another couple of days, then bleed pressure and harvest yeast then dial up the pressure. I might add some priming sugar to ensure adequate carbonation, and maybe some gelatin to speed the clearing.

1.072 to 1.016 in five days, thats fast. 78% attenuation is a perfect result as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...

In my opinion I would ramp the pressure up now if you are looking to gain some carbonation outta it. In fact you may be at FG now with that attenuation. If it doesnt drop any more you could either add some priming sugar or just force carb it the rest of the way. One of the great things about a spunding valve is you will not be overcarbed if you have your pressure dialed in at the correct temp.

Also, I think most people find it easier to harvest yeast AFTER you've transferred. Add a half gallon of sterile water, shake and then dispense into a sanitized mason jar=>you now have washed yeast!
 
My latest pressure ferment turned into a disaster... It's my own fault, I put a picnic tap on the 10 gallon keg I ferment in to take a gravity sample as the phone was ringing. Of course I forgot about it overnight. The next day I left on a business trip and came home 2 days later to 8 gallons of beer on the floor.
Apparently the picnic tap couldn't handle the pressure and it blew the tap off the hose emptying the keg on the floor. :(
 
onthekeg said:
My latest pressure ferment turned into a disaster... It's my own fault, I put a picnic tap on the 10 gallon keg I ferment in to take a gravity sample as the phone was ringing. Of course I forgot about it overnight. The next day I left on a business trip and came home 2 days later to 8 gallons of beer on the floor.
Apparently the picnic tap couldn't handle the pressure and it blew the tap off the hose emptying the keg on the floor. :(
Click to expand...

Dear lord, I didn't need to read that.. 12 gallons of brown ale are in my fermenter with the pressure building and a picnic tap on the top !! I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will be OK until I get home next weiek !!
 
onthekeg said:
My latest pressure ferment turned into a disaster... It's my own fault, I put a picnic tap on the 10 gallon keg I ferment in to take a gravity sample as the phone was ringing. Of course I forgot about it overnight. The next day I left on a business trip and came home 2 days later to 8 gallons of beer on the floor.
Apparently the picnic tap couldn't handle the pressure and it blew the tap off the hose emptying the keg on the floor. :(
Click to expand...

I have a ball valve on the top of my sankey coupler to have better control.

What was the pressure in your keg? Was there a hose clamp on the picnic tap?

I've wondered what the pressure gets to in the beer line to the picnic tap if you take a gravity sample early in the ferment. There's unfermented wort and yeast in the line, they continue to ferment and there's no where for the CO2 to go. I suspect it would take a ton of pressure to rupture the tubing or knock the tap off. Probably not enough sugar in the line to let that happen.

But an entire keg of wort leading to that beer line...that's another story.

I'm sorry that happened to you.

Have a Merry Christmas all
 
@ KPR - cheers buddy. I made my order and parts are on the way. I definitely owe you a cold one.


1 more questions for you pressure vets. I'm brewing an IPA soon and I hear they should be drank fresh. Is 2 weeks grain to glass unreasonable? What's your shortest grain to glass time with pressurized ferm?


Cheers!
 
You can definitely be grain to glass in two weeks. I would ferment a lil warm, and just need to check gravity a bunch so it doesnt drop to fg before you've had a chance to ramp up the pressure.
 
cmuench said:
I have a ball valve on the top of my sankey coupler to have better control.

What was the pressure in your keg? Was there a hose clamp on the picnic tap?

I've wondered what the pressure gets to in the beer line to the picnic tap if you take a gravity sample early in the ferment. There's unfermented wort and yeast in the line, they continue to ferment and there's no where for the CO2 to go. I suspect it would take a ton of pressure to rupture the tubing or knock the tap off. Probably not enough sugar in the line to let that happen.

But an entire keg of wort leading to that beer line...that's another story.

I'm sorry that happened to you.

Have a Merry Christmas all
Click to expand...

No hose clamp on the picnic tap, like I said I don't leave it connected usually, but I did this time. Lesson learned. I was running a little over 20 psi, and I shut off the spunding valve as I was going to transfer soon it was near terminal gravity. I am cheap and like it to have enough pressure to carb and nearly transfer itself to the next keg.
 
Has anyone here done a full 15 in a snake under pressure? I'm going to use fermcap. I plan to brew up the iipa I just did at 10 gallon and then add an additional 5 gal water at chill. The 10 gallon iipa when watered down matches up for a perfect American ipa.

Would appreciate any tips so I don't clog my poly sulfone valve
 
kpr121 said:
You can definitely be grain to glass in two weeks. I would ferment a lil warm, and just need to check gravity a bunch so it doesnt drop to fg before you've had a chance to ramp up the pressure.
Click to expand...

So if I happen to miss this small window and my beer drops too far in gravity to build up pressure can I just put it under c02 pressure manually and still get the benefits of faster grain to glass time?
 
cino101 said:
So if I happen to miss this small window and my beer drops too far in gravity to build up pressure can I just put it under c02 pressure manually and still get the benefits of faster grain to glass time?
Click to expand...

Absolutely! Or you could add priming sugar and set your spunding pressure to desired levels. Any excess CO2 created will be blown off.
 
Last night I turned the chiller back on to start dropping the temp to the extent I could. It was down a few degrees this morning.

Today I made up a gas transfer line and purged a keg using the gas from the Brewhemoth. That brought the pressure down to 5psi. I then harvested some yeast from the dump valve and cleaned up the valve to the extent I could. I bled the remaining pressure, opened the top and added gelatin and an ounce of Cascade for a modest dry hopping.

I sealed things back up and pressurized the fermentor to 30psi. I'll let this go for about a week and then keg. By then I hope my barbed triclamp fitting comes in, brewershardware had an item on backorder and that is holding up shipment. Its causing me to have to slow down my rapid-turnaround beer.
 
flananuts said:
Has anyone here done a full 15 in a snake under pressure? I'm going to use fermcap. I plan to brew up the iipa I just did at 10 gallon and then add an additional 5 gal water at chill. The 10 gallon iipa when watered down matches up for a perfect American ipa.

Would appreciate any tips so I don't clog my poly sulfone valve
Click to expand...

Give it a shot and let us know how it goes. I did 15 gallons and it was a bit messy. Hence the reason I want a yeast collection system prior to my spunding setup. The keg idea seems great to grab the blow-off, but i am anxious to know how 15 gallons with fermcap works.
 
I'm guessing that 15gal in a 5.5gal fermentor is too much even with fermcap. Fermcap only seems to work for awhile anyway. I use it on my boils and I always have a generous krausen. Why do you want 15gal anyway? You still wouldn't get 15gal of finished beer. I think I'd just go with 11gal and have two full kegs per batch.

The thing I don't like about priming sugar is having to open the fermentor to the air to put it in. I had to do this to add my dry hops and gelatin, but I was conflicted about it. I'm going to give a strict no-air batch a try one of these times.
 
flananuts said:
Has anyone here done a full 15 in a snake under pressure? I'm going to use fermcap. I plan to brew up the iipa I just did at 10 gallon and then add an additional 5 gal water at chill. The 10 gallon iipa when watered down matches up for a perfect American ipa.

Would appreciate any tips so I don't clog my poly sulfone valve
Click to expand...

I've done many 15 gal batches in a sankey. That's the only size I do. I use 30 drops of fermcap S per batch.

I use a blow off tube for the first 48 hrs then put on the poly sulfone and crank it up. It works fantastic for me. I've tried the valve at the beginning and it gets plugged with proteins and hop particulate in the krausen. Then you've got trouble. It's a pain to keep taking it off and cleaning it so you don't have a bomb.

I've done a better job at the end of the boil with whirlpooling and letting the wort sit for 15 min before chilling. I don't get hardly any hops in the fermenter so maybe now I could get away with putting the valve on right away.

You guys have been talking so much about top cropping yeast that I've been thinking about connecting my blowoff tube to my filter and putting the valve on the other side to see how that goes. I've gotta read the yeast harvesting/washing wiki again before I try that.

I say go for it. More beer is better!! :mug:
 
I have nearly exact setup as cmuench, except I do 10 gal. in sanke. I am having trouble getting to FG. I seem to get "close", close down the vavle and the FG doesn't get any lower. At what point are you close and should it be closed up to allow to finish and carbonate? Example, I start my oatmeal stout at 1.057 and expect FG 1.018. I have done this same recipe maybe 25 times and have never had trouble with carboys. I am getting to about 1.022 and closing it up. My finished after crash cooling, filtering, warming and rechilling is still 1.022?? What am I doing wrong?? :mad:
 
So I brewed my tiny nipples ipa based off the hard nipples iipa that just started force caring. I used fermcap in the boil and quite impressed since I boiled 14 gal. I decided to top up to 14 in the sanke and did add fermcap to the fermenter. My eff was spot on so I'm going to ferment under pressure at 1.076 and when I filter to keg, I'll split up the final gallon of water in the keg to hit 1.065 or so. I'll keep you posted on the process.
 
I slowly ramp pressure over the course of the fermentation schedule and once I'm at about 3/4 finished I'm usually up around 8-10 psi and then I crank it up to 15psi for the remainder.

dtanders said:
I have nearly exact setup as cmuench, except I do 10 gal. in sanke. I am having trouble getting to FG. I seem to get "close", close down the vavle and the FG doesn't get any lower. At what point are you close and should it be closed up to allow to finish and carbonate? Example, I start my oatmeal stout at 1.057 and expect FG 1.018. I have done this same recipe maybe 25 times and have never had trouble with carboys. I am getting to about 1.022 and closing it up. My finished after crash cooling, filtering, warming and rechilling is still 1.022?? What am I doing wrong?? :mad:
Click to expand...
 
Okay heres some pictures of my setup. Sorry for the crappy phone pic quality.

IMG_20111230_182417.jpg


IMG_20111230_182424.jpg
 
flananuts said:
Has anyone here done a full 15 in a snake under pressure? I'm going to use fermcap. I plan to brew up the iipa I just did at 10 gallon and then add an additional 5 gal water at chill. The 10 gallon iipa when watered down matches up for a perfect American ipa.

Would appreciate any tips so I don't clog my poly sulfone valve
Click to expand...

I do 14.5g in a sanke and am continuing to push it further, and I use no fermcap. I have a second pressure vessel (corny keg) attached to my sanke that, especially at these volumes, is force top cropping about a quart or more of blow off- although especially with pressure it's hard to get a perfect known amount of blow off. The yeast is so damn purdy tho, like a white labs vial. My spunding valve is chained off of the second keg, so it doesn't get dirty and my thinking was that 'there's just gas going thru there, right?' I was not correct.

My spunding valve has been the source of 3 infections in a row, my first bout with infection. HIGHLY recommend constructing your spunding valve so that you can disassemble and clean it after use and or let whatever tubing or fittings in the chain fully dry out after cleaning. After cutting the tubing in my assembly and smelling the horror, I now know that condensation that forms inside the tubing was then dripping back into the fermenter and causing the infection. Whatever my methods of keeping this thing clean, it's more than just CO2 that escapes thru it and it needs to be cleaned.

I'm now reconstructing so that all the spunding hardware is at the end of a tube that I can flush and sanitize and take off of the assembly to hang dry after the ferment- kind of like a kegerator line. Maybe I'll also run star san thru the valve before every brew too.
 
Sanke, I am sorry you are going through the battle with infections. This scares me because honestly I havent been the most diligent with sanitizing the tubing and connections other than from the QD to the water filter. Even then I dont worry about sanitizing between consecutive brews because I was thinking it should all be closed and full of C02.

I am going to start breaking everything down, soaking in Oxyclean, then running Starsan through the system. I think I will just leave the entire system full of starsan, then I dont have to worry about trying to keep it completely dry.
 
Thanks for the post. I never clean my valve set up but then I've not had any issues with moisture. I will definitely keep an eye on this.

SankePankey said:
I do 14.5g in a sanke and am continuing to push it further, and I use no fermcap. I have a second pressure vessel (corny keg) attached to my sanke that, especially at these volumes, is force top cropping about a quart or more of blow off- although especially with pressure it's hard to get a perfect known amount of blow off. The yeast is so damn purdy tho, like a white labs vial. My spunding valve is chained off of the second keg, so it doesn't get dirty and my thinking was that 'there's just gas going thru there, right?' I was not correct.

My spunding valve has been the source of 3 infections in a row, my first bout with infection. HIGHLY recommend constructing your spunding valve so that you can disassemble and clean it after use and or let whatever tubing or fittings in the chain fully dry out after cleaning. After cutting the tubing in my assembly and smelling the horror, I now know that condensation that forms inside the tubing was then dripping back into the fermenter and causing the infection. Whatever my methods of keeping this thing clean, it's more than just CO2 that escapes thru it and it needs to be cleaned.

I'm now reconstructing so that all the spunding hardware is at the end of a tube that I can flush and sanitize and take off of the assembly to hang dry after the ferment- kind of like a kegerator line. Maybe I'll also run star san thru the valve before every brew too.
Click to expand...
 
On New Years Eve I finished up my IPA that I dry hopped on 10/15/11. I put the hops in a 5 gal paint strainer bag, tie it shut and leave it in the serving keg.

The last pint out of the keg was as good as the first. No grassy flavor at all.

In my opinion, those of you concerned about leaving your beer on the dry hops too long, shouldn't be.

Cheers
 
cmuench said:
On New Years Eve I finished up my IPA that I dry hopped on 10/15/11. I put the hops in a 5 gal paint strainer bag, tie it shut and leave it in the serving keg.

The last pint out of the keg was as good as the first. No grassy flavor at all.

In my opinion, those of you concerned about leaving your beer on the dry hops too long, shouldn't be.

Cheers
Click to expand...

Agreed. Thanks for adding to the evidence against grassy dryhopping!
 
I've thrown hop bags in my kegs and left them the whole time I drank it. Didn't get grassy but it did get progressively more hoppy. I'd guess it depends on a number of factors including whole vs pellet hops, hop variety and amount used.

I'm dying to try pressurized fermentation in a corny, but I have so darned much beer right now I really can't justify making more.
 
Im taking a shot at a full grain to glass in one vessel, a hefe that I brewed 3 weeks ago and fermented in a corny keg. Tonight I put the primary in the kegerator to crash cool and finish carbing, and will see how serving goes after a few days. I figure a style like this would do well if it happened to be a little cloudy. If it is too much after the first 5 pints or so I will transfer to a clean serving vessel.

Has anyone done this before? I did a search but only found limited results.
 

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