Fermenting in Kegs

Alright here's a question. I saw a video on YouTube that gave me the idea to ferment in kegs. I am doing a five gallon batch of an IPA and after my primate was done I tried what the guy in the video said to do which was to pressurize the keg enough to blow out the yeast the thing is there was nothing that came out noticeable enough to be yeast and I am afaraid i am wasting beer. The beer is coming out cloudy what should I do.

I have been using kegs as a secondary and it works well. But you do need to let it settle. I wouldn't use it for primary , that mould be way too much gunk to settle out. You could always pressure transfer it to another keg and let it settle again.

A Cornelius keg is a poor shape for fermentation. You want something wide enough to get good movement out of the yeast as it works. The tall thin shape of kegs doesn't get the convection moving as well. As a secondary it would be more appropriate.

did you really do 5 gal. in a 5 gal. keg? how much blow off did you get? Id rack it to second keg. going to be alot of yeast on the bottom.

fermcap! lol people primary in cornies quite often actually.

buzzkill said:

did you really do 5 gal. in a 5 gal. keg? how much blow off did you get? Id rack it to second keg. going to be alot of yeast on the bottom.

Click to expand...

SECONDARY. No blow off. Once the beer has cleared, mostly, I have been sending it to a keg and carbonating it.

You can drink it while it's still pretty green or you can let it sit for a week or two. I kind of do both. It's interesting to taste the changes over the week or two it would normally be sitting in a secondary fermentor. You have no contamination risk in the keg.

Until the beer fully settles you will get some turb in your glass. Once it really is settled the tube will have cleared an area around it's self (in to your glass) and it will pour clear, unless you move it around and sit it up again.

ahh.. ok, yes I go right to the keg after primary and works great. alot of brewers do this. I you crash cool the fermenter it will clear and you wont have much yeast in the keg. and wont need to jump it.

Thanks for the great advice. After attempting this I've decided that next time I will Primary as usual then rack to the keg for secondary. I saw those carboy caps that you can "pressureize" the carboy to then rack to the keg so I'm gonna give that a whirl. I'm still pretty new at this and trying out new ideas to attempt to streamline my methods.

You definitely can ferment in a keg-the shape has absolutely no ill affect on the fermentation. I am on my second batch of closed system pressurized fermentation, and it makes some of the cleanest beer I have made to date.

Do yourself a favor and do a search and thorough read on the subject. Plenty of threads from experienced brewers on this site and others. Don't go by what someone heard or thinks, do your due diligence and research the subject.

Rumor, speculation, and here-say are no match for evidence based brewing experience. Nothing against your process-it works. Fact is fermenting in cornelius kegs works too.

after my primate was done I tried what the guy in the video said to do

Click to expand...

Brewing with Monkeys?