Carboy to keg transfer experimenting

Still playing around with ways to get stuff from the carboy into Cornies. A comment Bobby_M made in another thread about a true closed system made me want to try this.

First I pumped Star-San into the keg using an auto-siphon connected to the long dip tube (OUT port). This sanitized the diptube, tubing and connector.

I next dumped the Star-San back into my bucket, sealed the lid on the keg and purged with CO2, leaving the tube connected to the OUT port to purge any leftover liquid/foam at the bottom.

Now I went to my carboy. Connected the tube that was connected to the auto-siphon to the racking cane in the carboy cap. Connected a white connector to the IN port on the keg and put a piece of tubing on that.

Got the siphon started by blowing in the other tube on the carboy cap (I could have used CO2, and probably will next time). I connected the tubing from the gas side to the second tube on the carboy cap to create a truly closed system.

I was just going to put the tube back into my Star-san bucket, since really only foam should come out of it. Then I got concerned about overfilling the keg and decided this would be better. I could also have put the tube in an empty bucket, but I wanted to make this process use as little extra equipment as possible.



It seemed to be working well. For some reason I kept getting bubbles in the siphon line.



As it got towards the bottom the siphon slowed down and eventually stopped. I had to lift the carboy up quite a bit to get it going again.

So I like the process. It was easy, clean, and I didn't have to babysit it until the end. Next time I'll raise the carboy up a foot or two to get a stronger siphon.

Any input and discussion is welcome!

-Joe

It would have been just as easy with an autosyphon.

I used to place my bottling bucket on the counter and bottles on the floor. For several years now I've been placing the bottling bucket on top of another primary (with lid) and bottle right on the counter. No more bending over.

When racking to kegs, the kegs stay on the floor.

Where are you in Jeff Cty? I'm from Camden myself. I know a lot of people wouldn't admit that, but I was born in 1954. I still have relatives in Philly, Cherry Hill, Haddonfield, Franklinville, Hammonton areas, etc.

homebrewer_99 said:

It would have been just as easy with an autosyphon.

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Yes, but I'm toying with using the carboy cap for two reasons: I don't have to hold the auto-siphon in place, and I have the option of pressurizing the carboy with CO2 for an airless transfer. This is all in the name of science

I'm in Lake Hopatcong, just south of Sparta.

-Joe

nostalgia said:

For some reason I kept getting bubbles in the siphon line.

As it got towards the bottom the siphon slowed down and eventually stopped. I had to lift the carboy up quite a bit to get it going again.

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Liquid at the top of the siphon is under reduced pressure (almost 1psi less for a 2-foot racking cane with the liquid level near the bottom). Dissolved CO2 comes out of solution (the beer is saturated with CO2 from the fermentation at atmospheric pressure - reduce the pressure, it bubbles). <edit>Those bubbles can stop your siphon, which is highly irritating. Not a problem with water, unless the water has been sitting full of and blanketed by CO2 for a few weeks, so frustrating to people such as myself who feel that they are accomplished siphoners - in the the water realm.</edit>

You could have simply applied gas pressure to the carboy (since you have pressurized gas available) to restart the siphon. Takes exactly as much as mentioned above (About 1psi for 2 feet of rise), but this time above rather than below atmospheric.

nice method.

I just ordered a corny keg kegging system... I will have to take this in mind when racking my first kegged beer

I just racked to a keg of beer today. I simply did the old auto siphon method, but I like the idea of a closed transfer. I'm sure this would be really easy with a Better Bottle that has a racking adapter.

I did the same thing last night, but instead of a carboy cap I used my auto-siphon. The gas side of the keg had its hose just drooped into my sanitizing trough.

It worked perfectly. No bubbles, no stopped/slow siphon. Good and strong, right to the end.

I wonder if having the gas side of the keg connected to the carboy cap created some sort of vapor lock/partial vacuum in the carboy which was causing all the CO2 to come out of solution and screw up my siphon?

Either way, I really like this method. It's easy to sanitize the keg by auto-siphoning Star-san, and now my auto-siphon and tubing are already sanitized. Dump the Star-san out, seal the keg, purge with CO2 with the OUT line connected and you blow out most of the extra foam at the bottom.

You now have a sealed, sterilized, CO2 filled vessel to receive beer. Overkill? Maybe But it's easy and gives peace of mind.

-Joe

I sometimes ferment in cornies and it can also be useful to make up a tube with two gas QDs on it to jumper between kegs to do transfers. Since I am taking a cornie of octoberfest over to a friend's house for a party I'll probably use this again to take the beer off any sediment that has accumulated in the keg over the past month, then I can transport the beer without worrying overly much about it getting all cloudy again.

conpewter said:

Since I am taking a cornie of octoberfest over to a friend's house for a party I'll probably use this again to take the beer off any sediment that has accumulated in the keg over the past month, then I can transport the beer without worrying overly much about it getting all cloudy again.

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I've wanted to do this myself, but am a bit confused. Since the dip tube is at the bottom where all the sediment is, how can you use a jumper to rack "off" the sediment?

-Joe

nostalgia said:

I'm in Lake Hopatcong, just south of Sparta.

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I lived in Hopatcong for about a year in 2000. Very cute town and totally undid my perceptions of New Jersey. We read the name of the town wrong, so before we moved there, we were telling everyone we were moving to Hop-ta-cong.

Neat experiment!

Ready for the revival?!?!?! Do you still do this? My carboy cap doesn't fit very well so I was thinking of drilling a bung with two holes, for air in and for liquid out... I figured the liquid out could also work as a blow off tube during fermenting so you can take gravity readings without worrying about infection.

anyway, there goes longshot....

Wow, no I stopped doing this after the poppet clogged with sediment and stopped the transfer dead. I went back to using an autosiphon with a long hose to the bottom of the keg.

-Joe