no more carboys or fermenters.....???

I was thinking about how to streamline my brew process one day while enjoying a brew and here is my question to all the brewing senseis. Why not skip the primary and carboy? Here is what I do. I will transfer my wort directly into my corny keg , will keep the lid on but put the co2 fitting hose in a bucket of sanstar (airlock). Then after 5-7 days I carbonate the keg and blowoff all the sediment (primary transfer).A Couple more days and blowoff again (secondary transfer). Beer is then hypothetically ready to force carb then drink. Whats wrong with this idea? Only thing I can think of is if WILD-N-CRAZY yeast was used and the airlock hose got plugged. Let me know what ya think, would really appreciate it.

Issue # 1 Batch Size: Figure that a 5 gallon keg holds just over five gallons, if you make a big beer that has alot of blow-off you are going to lose quite a bit unless you brew smaller batches. Also it would be next to impossible to clear all of the sediment out of a keg with only CO2 pressure and the small hole in the diptube. That stuff sticks to the bottom pretty well, and it's not going to all work it's way out through the beer out fitting. It will probably clog, and if not the gas is going to agitate the beer and mix everthing up. Plus, you are going to push more liquid out in the clearing process.

So in the end, you are going to have a dry keg, or a gallon of mixed up gunk.

...not recommended for the above reasons...besides, everytime you touch the keg more yeast will get into the glass.

I routinely ferment 3 gal batches in cornies then use C02 to push the yeast and beer out when fermentation has completed. (I find this technique to be extremely convenient as compared to dealing with carboys.) When I transfer to my serving keg I typically get a small shot of yeast followed by the beer then the rest of the yeast. The second round of yeast slurry always clogs my picnic tap setup. It clogs so much that when I am attempting to repitch I usually have to open the keg, pour in some BMC, shake it around and just pour it out of the keg into my sanitized vessel. Unfortunately the only way I could see your original idea working properly is if you fermented in a pressurizable conical, dumped the yeast, force carbed then served.

By the way if you use anti-foam drops like Doc at The Brewing Network you should be able to ferment at least 4 gal in a corny without losing much to the blow off tube.

Another solution:
Ferment in your boil kettle. After primary fermentation is complete, transfer to a keg and carbonate. The break materials won't hurt your beer. The dimensions of the kettle are fine for fermentation. And if you have room to boil, you should have room for krausen.

The best way I have found (other than a conical) is to ferment in a Sanke Keg. They have plenty of area for yeast and I just remove the spear and clean it out, boil water in it with some Cascade, scrub with an extended carboy brush rinse well and then put Starsan in it, roll around to distribute the Sanitizer, Put Heavy duty aluminum foil over the top. Before filling rock the keg to wet the insides with the sanitizer, empty. Fill with wort and put a sanitized blowoff tube on it. I place it in a party tub with water and ice to maintain temperature or use my Ranco controlled freezer at 66F for ALE.

A guy in my LHBC (wonder if he reads HBT, heh) did that as an experiment, fermenting in a corny so that it would be carbonated and ready to serve when fermentation was done. I don't know the specifics, but I know he was bleeding off the excess periodically. It was ready very fast and was served at the LHBS during Big Brew Day. I didn't realize it was the beer he had experimented with until he told us. Granted, I wasn't putting much effort into critiquing the beer, and I'm a hell of a novice as it is with that stuff, but it was by no means horrible.

He's not suggesting it as an everyday method, as far as I know, but it worked as a proof of concept.

WBC said:

The best way I have found (other than a conical) is to ferment in a Sanke Keg. They have plenty of area for yeast and I just remove the spear and clean it out, boil water in it with some Cascade, scrub with an extended carboy brush rinse well and then put Starsan in it, roll around to distribute the Sanitizer, Put Heavy duty aluminum foil over the top. Before filling rock the keg to wet the insides with the sanitizer, empty. Fill with wort and put a sanitized blowoff tube on it. I place it in a party tub with water and ice to maintain temperature or use my Ranco controlled freezer at 66F for ALE.

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I love the idea but was wondering... A sanke is a standard 15.5 gal keg right? just like the ones I use to do "kegstands" off of in high school? But the advantage is I only need one fermenter right? Still have to transfer to keg though right? The HBT guys are great quick responses . Thanks. Also wanted to add my batches range 13-10 gal.

Yes, a sanke is the "kegstand" keg. Yes you would still have to transfer to a corny keg or to bottles.

Yes the keg is a 15.5 gallon with the spear removed to clean and fill. I use a siphon to rack to Corny kegs but you could go to bottling buckets too and bottle.

I've been seriously looking into temperature control, the freezer I currently have (that is actually not in use right now) can't fit a carboy in it, but I could fit two cornies in it I think.. Would it work to ferment in a corny with the dip tube cut up about 2" to not pull the trub out when I transfer it to my serving corny?

You will loose some more beer with 2 inches but it should work. I use a Sanke with 3/4 inch cut off the dip tube.

The advantages are:

1. A larger dip tube (1 inch)
2. A larger diameter vessel so the yeast can spread out
3. More volume (12 gallons)
4. Only 1 keg to clean