Spigot on a primary

After a number of apple-esque brews thanks to likely infection I've become rediculously paranoid about sanitation and limiting exposure of my batches to only the plastic and glass of 1° and 2° fermenters. I usually patiently wait until day 7 of 1° to take a terminal gravity reading ... right as I'm transferring to the carboy (I'm not willing to risk the sanitation of my brew by opening it up prior). Why not just buy an extra spigot, drill a hole around the 3 gallon mark on my primary and mount it; voila, gravity readings on demand. My main concern would then be sanitation of the spigot. Perhaps a glass of b-brite in which to submerge the spigot after readings? Additionally, removing a volume of fermenting beer will create a suction through the airlock and subsequently pull some water from within the airlock into the beer, right?

Thoughts?
-droukas

yes, opening a pet cock to withdraw fluid will expand the volume of space above the liquid resulting in a drop in pressure and an unwelcome sucking on your airlock. remove the airlock and let it suck air. you could use one of those little sanitary hepa type filters maybe to avoid sucking in germs.

what kind of carboys do you have? seems like drilling a hole in a glass carboy would be tricky. whether glass or plastic, you'll need seals of some kind. it's a potential place to develop leaks and the fittings can harbor bacteria, so sanitize it well before use.

for conventional sampling i presume you sanitize your thief before you dip it and you don't return any fluids to the vessel?

Why not just take the reading on day 7 when you transfer to the secondary?

My primaries are plastic so it's not a bother to drill holes in them. The spigot I would use is the same type on the bottom of bottling buckets, only moved up a foot or so.

Taking a reading on day 7 is just keeping my fingers crossed and hoping everything went well; I'd like to be able to actively monitor fermentation much the way a conical fermenter allows. I'm really just delaying buying a SS conical.

ddroukas said:

After a number of apple-esque brews thanks to likely infection

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An apple flavour/aroma is likely from acetaldehyde - an intermediate compound in fermentation. Its usual cause is inadequate conditioning of the beer, not from infection. I, like many others, no longer religiously transfer from a primary fermentation vessel to a secondary unless it is a really big beer and I'm going to condition it for several months before bottling. All my regular beers stay in one fermentation vessel for up to 8 weeks before bottling. This gives your yeast more then enough time to clean up after themselves.

In terms of drilling your primary it is somewhat self-defeating as any "tooling" or hardware in your fermentor is a possible site of bacteria/wild yeast contamination.

GT

+1 to Got Trub's comment. this isn't an infection, and honestly a spigot poses different sanitizing problems versus a racking cane or auto-siphon.

Got Trub? said:

All my regular beers stay in one fermentation vessel for up to 8 weeks before bottling. This gives your yeast more then enough time to clean up after themselves.

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i'm no expert, but i think you're risking autolysis leaving your beer on the trub and yeast cake in primary for more than two weeks. Saccharomyces cerevisiae moribundos.

All of my fermentation buckets have spigots. Technically, one is a bottling bucket, but the only difference is a slightly smaller diameter for the spigot. I draw samples as necessary. There is so much CO2 in the system that getting air in the wort at that point isn't a concern.

As far as autolysis goes, I've had exactly one case. That was a fermenter that got left outside with the cake in the bottom for about 4 months. As long as there is beer over the cake, autolysis is extremely unlikely.

I'm surprised because I have long been warned of the dangers of autolysis setting in after a couple of weeks, although I've never experienced it. But then three weeks is the longest I've ever left beer in primary. My habit has been to siphon off the yeast cake and into a conditioning carboy for another three to four weeks before bottling.

If the risk of autolysis is so small, then I guess there's no particular reason why a brewer who makes 5 gallon batches should ever need to consider buying anything but 6.5 gallon carboys.

I really wonder about this. Would be nice to hear from a biologist on the autolysis question.

billtzk said:

I'm surprised because I have long been warned of the dangers of autolysis setting in after a couple of weeks, although I've never experienced it. But then three weeks is the longest I've ever left beer in primary. My habit has been to siphon off the yeast cake and into a conditioning carboy for another three to four weeks before bottling.

If the risk of autolysis is so small, then I guess there's no particular reason why a brewer who makes 5 gallon batches should ever need to consider buying anything but 6.5 gallon carboys.

I really wonder about this. Would be nice to hear from a biologist on the autolysis question.

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I think the main reason for the secondary is as a clearing tank to remove as much sediment as possible. That being said I prefer to err on the side of caution.

Would you accept the opinion of Wyeast's techs?

Cell autolysis, or cell death can also be a cause of swelling packaged. However, this is only in rare cases where the yeast is exposed to high temperature for an extended amount of time.

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david_42 said:

Would you accept the opinion of Wyeast's techs?

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I'd be somewhat inclined to since they are a yeast laboratory. But product manufacturers routinely make questionable claims with regard to their products (e.g., diet and nutritional supplement companies are a prime example), so I wouldn't unquestionably accept it. Also, the Wyeast statement is in regard to conditions inside a Wyeast smack pack, which may or may not be applicable to five gallons of beer in your carboy or fermenting pail.

Anyway, they aren't stating that a swollen smack pack is good for 8 weeks in that comment.