Anyone tried this? (First Lager attempt)

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NewBrewB

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So, ever since I got into home-brewing, I wanted to try a lager. Unfortunately, I already burned a bridge by sacrificing my wife's deep-freeze to make a keezer and she's not likely to give up fridge space. :) My keezer isn't big enough to hold two kegs AND a carboy (better bottle), so I decided to try and ferment in a corny keg.

Short story shorter, I used a 1.5" piece of 1/2" bev tubing and wedged it on top of the IN side of my keg, then put a 3-piece valve in the tube. Fortunately, it wasn't too tall, given the design I used for the keezer.

I checked this morning (day 6) and it is actively fermenting. :) Good times!

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Dude sweet. I need to move my keezer indoors like yours. I especially dig the bamboo trim with matching tap handles. Nice.

Is that your German Shepherd on the left?
 
what a great idea! ive been wanting to do an octoberfest but couldnt figure out a way to get to lagering temps. thats a great idea for fermenting in keg! now you really do have a stainless steel fermentation. thanks for the idea!
 
Dude sweet. I need to move my keezer indoors like yours. I especially dig the bamboo trim with matching tap handles. Nice.

Is that your German Shepherd on the left?

German (Belgian) Shepherd on the left, Rescue Lab mix in the middle, and insane Okinawan street-dog rescue on the right. We framed the craziest pictures of each of them we could find. :) If you're curious about my keezer design, the post about it is here. I'm not sure I'd recommend this style as it is seriously tall, but it was fun to make.

what a great idea! ive been wanting to do an octoberfest but couldnt figure out a way to get to lagering temps. thats a great idea for fermenting in keg! now you really do have a stainless steel fermentation. thanks for the idea!

I'm a little bit scared about how the cleaning process will go. I also wish I had an extra one of the "in" side 2" inserts so I could have used that on the "OUT" side instead of the full dip-tube. Ohwell, I sanitized the whole thing the best I could and we'll see how much scrubbing I have to do in a couple months. :)
 
I'm a little bit scared about how the cleaning process will go. I also wish I had an extra one of the "in" side 2" inserts so I could have used that on the "OUT" side instead of the full dip-tube. Ohwell, I sanitized the whole thing the best I could and we'll see how much scrubbing I have to do in a couple months. :)

I was thinking about this myself and figured, the best way might be to leave the tube out all together and seal the opening with something, even a piece of food safe rubber carved to fit and jammed in or a threaded cap or hell, even take the valve out of the connection and fill it with silicone.
 
You think I should pull it out now and do that? or just leave it?

I don't think it would aerate the beer if I just remove the tube slowly....hmm
 
Ok... so at this point, I'd declare partial success. I transferred via easy siphon to another sanitized keg and stopped when I started seeing tons of sediment in the siphon.

Then I looked in the second keg... looks like about 3.5 galons of beer. I looked in the "primary" keg and there is about 1.5 galons of sediment/sludge. Now, this is my first lager attempt so I can only compare it to other batches I've made and fermented in clear carboys. Does a Lager usually have such a high volume of sediment sludge or is 48 days too soon and I should have waited longer?

*sigh* I'm carbonating the 3.5 gal so we'll see how it tastes in a couple of days.

(Also, it was fairly easy to clean out the sludge from the 'primary' keg--was kinda' worried about that part but no issues)
 
Ok... . Does a Lager usually have such a high volume of sediment sludge or is 48 days too soon and I should have waited longer? . . . . .

Most have alot of trub, some do not, I didn't see what yeast you are using. My current lager project has Saflager S-23 and there is a ton of trub, we typically do 10 gallon batches on the brews that take a while, this one (dark spruce lager) will probably be 3 months after the lagering phase, it has been 3 weeks in the kegerator at 48F so far and we still have a diacetyl rest to go through before lagering.

It's hard to say if 48 days was enough without knowing the specifics of your beer. Yeast, malts, temperatures, dates, etc, etc. Also, "Nothing is absolute, Brewing is both a science and an art" John Palmer.

Keep on brewing my friends:mug:
 
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