In-line yeast injection for homebrewing

As homebrewers don't pitch volumes appropriate to using a keg like the commercial breweries. But I would love to come up with a device that can be used to push our culture using gas (O2 on brew day and CO2 on keg conditioning day) to inject it inline to the fermenter.

The best thing I can come up with is to rig up a canning jar with a T connection to a gas line (horizontal to the ground) and a compression fitting on the top connected to a steel racking can cut to size. Just enough pressure to move liquid (2 psi) but I am not comfortable pressurizing glass.

Considerations:

Something that is sterilizable/bakable or pressure-cooker worthy to accomodate all kinds of cultures.

Minimal contact with parts hard to sanitize.

Maybe something like a Blichman Hop Rocket would work?

On homebrew level this sounds like way more effort than using an oxygenation wand and pouring yeast from a flask would take. On kegging day just siphon up a little yeast from the bottom for keg conditioning. Done!

Now a pico or nano brewery may see increased benefits. It's all about controlling the dosing rate. For the large outfits (e.g., Stone, DFH) it all makes sense, manual "interference" is out of the question. Yeast and oxygen get injected into the wort at precise dosage rates on her way from the chillers to the (huge) fermentors.

Agreed, pitching on brew day is simple enough to pour into the fermenter. The main purpose is for the keg conditioning portion, brew day options is simply an added bonus.

I humbly disagree that pulling whatever yeast off a bottom and job is done. I admit, my needs are more particular than most of us homebrewers. I have access to a lab and study yeast in brewery environments. The task may not seem worth it, but I do viability testing with all the cultures I use and I no longer use yeast dormant in the bottom of a fermenter anymore because of the lack of consistency I get. Some are +80% viable and the same yeast in another beer will be 18%, both from the same culture stepped up from a single culture on a plate, in the same wort step ups, and fermented at the same temps. Bud scars galore. I am not saying you can't make amazing beer with yeast from the fermentation (there is no shortage of great examples here at HBT) but I now prefer to harvest yeast from starters. They also seem to carb up kegs within 10ish days as opposed to 3-4 weeks. I don't mind the wait, but the range in rates of completion says to me variables are all over the place.

The process I am after is to gain familiarity with fermentation characteristics of cultures from pichia, torulaspora, brett, and another strain I am sequencing in December I only know is of another genus (and not sacch. c.), makes ethanol, and produces some intense raspberry esters (hopefully more interesting than a candida!). Because these are cultures that exist in spite of brewers, their fermentative characteristics are not well-known and the more data I can gather in fixed conditions the more useful it will be to determine which ones are good candidates for pure-culture, mixed-culture, and hybridization to fine-tune the expression of phenotypes.

I had in mind something similar to what is used in the medical industries to inject a compound into an I.V. The hop rocket is an interesting idea that I will think on. I generally avoid Blichmann because I don't like using equipment with proprietary parts that they change out with new models. But the hop rocket I believe has common threading so I can probably find a way to tinker with it. I will borrow one from a friend and tinker next week.

How big do you want this to be? Sounds like it might be pretty small?
On the jar idea, are you describing a hose end sprayer? Yeast in the cup and the flow causes a suction pulling the yeast into the flow.


Edit:
I see your setup in another post. You boil chill dump then pitch all,in your fermentor. Hence why you want gas flow to do the injecting of the yeast. That's while your oxygenating your wort. Right?

GreenMonti said:

How big do you want this to be? Sounds like it might be pretty small?
On the jar idea, are you describing a hose end sprayer? Yeast in the cup and the flow causes a suction pulling the yeast into the flow.


Edit:
I see your setup in another post. You boil chill dump then pitch all,in your fermentor. Hence why you want gas flow to do the injecting of the yeast. That's while your oxygenating your wort. Right?

Click to expand...

I am looking mainly for small volumes of yeast, ~50mL that I can inject into kegs for post-primary purposes. Better still, inject yeast and follow up with dextrose slurry, all pushed with CO2.

A hose end sprayer is better than what I had in mind. Let me think on that..

I think jaybird's device for converting a Sanke keg into a fermenter allows yeast to be injected into the wort after it is added to the keg.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=584147

Id be interested in how the hop rocket works for you. Perhaps it can be dual use without the concern of cross contamination. My plan is to have a sterile primary pitch because the homebrew space is either the basement or outdoors.
Then again we homebrewers shouldnt concern too much about uber-sterile practices. I know plenty of pro's that are pitching buckets of yeast through the manway and still have a reliable product and reusable culture.
Thanks for sharing your findings on using a built culture for conditioning. That'll come in handy.

NorCal brewing has canning jar compatible lids that you could fit Tri-clover clamps onto. I thought about using this with a ball valve to harvest yeast on a Sanke keg. In your case you could create a starter, hook it up and pull the valve that would then mix the yeast into the fermenter.View attachment 385146
View attachment 385147

OR! Hook up a couple of keg fittings to this lid and inject that yeast right in somehow.

View attachment 385148

Idk, just my two cents.